COLUMBUS– Governor John R. Kasich today signed into law Senate Bill 23, sponsored by Senator Bill Beagle (R–Tipp City), which will give adults adopted between January 1964 and September 1996 access to their original birth records. Adoptees will also have access to important health records.

COLUMBUS–The Ohio Senate today passed Senate Bill 23, sponsored by Senator Bill Beagle (R–Tipp City), which would allow adult adoptees to access their original birth records.

Current law denies access to birth records based on the date of a person’s adoption, with individuals adopted between January 1964 and September 1996 having no mechanism to obtain their records.

“Not only is the current system inherently unfair to adoptees who fall in this unfortunate time frame, but it also denies people access to essential health information related to their family history,” Beagle said. “This bill is long overdue, and I thank my colleagues in the Senate for the overwhelming, bipartisan vote this afternoon.”

The bill will allow those individuals adopted between January 1964 and September 1996 to access their original birth records by contacting the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) in the same way as those adopted outside that 32-year window. Birth parents will also have a one year fixed time period to exercise an option to have their name redacted from the birth certificate that would be released to the adoptee.

Adoptions that occurred before 1964 or after September 1996 would not be affected by the bill.

The bill will now proceed to the Ohio House of Representatives for further consideration.