Some Progress On Birth records

LEGISLATURE: SOME PROGRESS ON BIRTH RECORDS, SYRINGES

Two long-stymied measures in Trenton have suddenly broken through, with the Senate approving a bill to allow adoptees access to their birth parents’ records and the Assembly Appropriations Committee passing a $10 million needle-exchange pilot program. The birth parent record bill, S-1087, has been controversial for many years with many legislators and the New Jersey State Bar Association arguing the privacy promises given birth parents at the time of adoption should not be broken. If approved, the needle-exchange bill, A-1852, would make New Jersey the nation’s last state to institute an exchange or syringe-purchase program for drug users.