In the news

[magid]

Or, how to raise one's blood pressure.

The House of Representatives has vote to make most of the provisions of the Patriot (*cough*) Act permanent. The only two that were put on hold (for another 10 years) involve library (and other personal) records and roving wiretaps. The rest now go to the Senate for confirmation. The Republicans refused to let the Democrat amendments for further time-limits even come to a vote.

There's some good health news: on average, USians' levels of lead and second-hand tobacco smoke are lower. However, this is (more than?) balanced by the bad news: levels of cadmium, insecticides, and phthalates (something to do with plastics) are higher. The complete almost-500-page report is downloadable as a PDF from the CDC (third down on the list). There's been a lot of energy spent on limiting lead and smoking, and I'm glad it's made a difference. I wish that people would pay as much attention up front to the risks of new things (insecticides, new plastics, whatever), rather than just waiting for problems to appear. I mean, insecticides, things meant to kill stuff, might be bad for larger mammals, too. But we blithely go on, making ourselves dependent on it, rather than working on other, greener approaches to the problems.

Now that same sex marriages are legal (and recorded appropriately) in Massachusetts, the next question is apparently "what about the kids?" Gov. Romney is telling hospitals to cross out "father" and write "second parent" on birth certificates. But town clerks question whether it's legal to have a birth certificate with cross-outs. And if that's a problem, how does the person use the birth certificate to get other ID? From the Globe article, my impression is that Romney is dragging his feet about having new forms made, because he's personally still opposed to same-sex marriage. Yet another instance of kids paying for their parents' perceived sins.

And on a lighter note, I don't want to lose the link to this scallion pancake recipe; it looks pretty doable (once the heat drops). (Have I mentioned how much I like this blog? (The RSS feed is tigerberries.) The way she writes reminds me of Laurie Colwin's food books, Home Cooking and More Home Cooking, just the right balance of knowledge, home cooking, and food obsession to suit my fancy.)

Comments

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Phthalates make plastic soft and pliable, and it's in a lot of baby toys, which they chew and suck constantly. For this reason, phthalates are banned in children's toys in Europe. I don't know if there's ever been any move afoot to do that here, but it seems like there should be.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info. Guh. We have no clue what we do to our kids, just as long as it works and is convenient...

[(Anonymous)]

Re: Same-sex marriage and the parenthetical statement of "and recorded appropriately," what what the issue?

[magid.livejournal.com]

The issue there was how one records the marriage of two men or two women on a form that was originally designed for one of each, ie, spaces for "husband" and "wife". Now there are forms with some equivalent of "spouse1" and "spouse2" (which of course makes me think of The Cat in the Hat :-), ie without reference to gender. And it wasn't a big deal to get these forms made, or at least, they were ready by the time they were needed.

[(Anonymous)]

Right, they had the marriage forms ready in time last May, is what I thought. So they're dragging their heels on the birth certificate forms?

On my birth certificate, while there are fields for name of child, sex, place of birth, and date of both, there are no parents' names fields. It is simply typewritten in below those four fields:

Father: [first middle last]
Mother: [first middle maiden-last] (Maiden Name)

and then there is a field for the date filed and signature and date of issue.

(I don't know why my mother's maiden name was used. I don't doubt they were married and she had already changed her name to "first middle married-last" by then. Maybe that's how it was done in that city.)

Of course it is assumed that it is my mother who gave birth, but considering not only same-sex couples but also adoptive parents, why does it matter?

If my certificate could have all that typewritten in, why not simply have a field for "Parents" and have it read thusly:

Parents: Parent & Parent

thusly not making one parent secondary ("second parent"), and not putting importance on who actually gave birth, only of the birth.

(Maybe it is important, however, to record who gave birth. I don't know.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I have two different copies of my birth certificate (in MA, if that makes a difference). The first one has my name, date of birth, place of birth, sex, color (that would be skin, not eyes), if a twin, residence of parents, name and occupation of father, birthplace of father, maiden name and birthplace of mother (no occupation, obviously! *snort*), and what the date of record was. The other includes all this information, plus gives a spot for a mother's occupation, their ages at the time of my birth, the attending doctor, precise time of day, and number of previous births my mother had. In both cases, mother and father are printed on the form in some way or another.

I don't know about the situation with adoptive parents (I had assumed that while the parent(s) of record may change, that doesn't change one's birth parents).

I assume that it's useful to the state to track who's given birth, so I can understand some way of indicating that, though perhaps primary and secondary aren't the right words.

They are dragging their heels on the birth certificate forms, and the big question is that while clerks are doing as the governor said and just crossing out "father" and putting in "secondary parent", there's a big question as to whether these birth certificates with cross-outs will be considered legal (outside the state, one would presume). For instance, for getting a passport, or proving citizenship at the beginning of a job. Maybe it'll just mean that they'll have to reissue birth certificates for all these kids once the new forms finally get made. I don't know.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, your birth certificates are way more involved than mine. Why do you have two?

My understanding is that for both adoptive situations and sex-change situations, new birth certificates get issued. It is strange, as the adoptive parent(s) is/are not the birth parents and the person of one sex was not actually born that sex, so people tend to feel odd about it, because it feels untruthful. But it is necessary, because of the way the birth certificate is used as a document that proves identity. It has to be accurate with respect to what the current facts are.

I supposed if there hadn't been/weren't stigma attached, there could be birth certificates and then adoption certificates or sex-reassignment certificates. But there is something to be said for having the same type of certificate that everyone else has without any extra "see attached" paperwork, let alone for maintaining privacy about adoption or sex-change issues.

Some adoptive parents keep both sets.

Sometimes the birth parent is a gestational surrogate.

Perhaps these forms need a huge overhaul, given changes both social and medically technological.

Yes, the cop-out of crossing out "Father" is troubling in that the dragging of the heels is happening, respect is not being given, and considering the legal unknowns.

Labels of "Parent" work fine for me. Why not list both parents as "Parent" and separately, even if redundantly, list "Birthed by," if that is in fact necessary.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't remember why I have two. I think it might be that I had one, but couldn't find it when I needed it to verify eligibility to work at $current_company, so I got another (and that was definitely a nuisance, figuring out where they'd hidden the registry in a maze of buildings that all seemed to have related street addresses).

I guess in some ways it makes sense to have the birth certificate change as you say, but another part of me says that they shouldn't change, that there should be a relatively immutable 'birth certificate,' and some other, more permutable, but equally legal, document that changes with later circumstances. And yeah, it seems like the documentation isn't keeping up with technology and societal changes at all.

Very nice idea, too: I'd be happy with Parent, Parent, and Birthed by (which also makes room for a third party, if relevant).

[(Anonymous)]

You put it well that a birth certificate should be immutable. It does certify the birth, after all, and shouldn't change, unless there was an error. Given the way birth certificates are used, however, new ones must be issued for adoptions and sex-changes, even if they seem to falsify what actually was the case at birth.

Yes, if birth certificates were simply birth certificates and your idea of another legal document that could be changed with such circumstances existed, that would be great. But this country doesn't want there to be national form of ID, which is why birth certificates and even more so driver's licenses have become what they are to fill that need.

It is indeed a conundrum.

Thank you for complimenting my "very nice" idea!

[magid.livejournal.com]

I didn't see a not-birth-but-later-updated certificate as a national ID, since it wouldn't be needed for some number of people. Rather that, if one needed this update, that it would have equal status as a form of ID.

As for national ID, sometimes I wonder why we don't just use passports; the government already certifies them, after all. And other parts of me just don't trust the government enough to want to give them any more information than they already get; I definitely don't want the readable chips put into my passport, for instance. It's a big issue in England these days, too.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, but if "not-birth-but-later-updated certificate[s]" were issued only as needed, privacy would be compromised for those who needed such updates -- largely people who have been adopted and people who have had sex-reassignment.

I think the not-birth certificates that we've been discussing ought to be issued _for everyone_. They would take the place of birth certificates as a form of ID, and, as they would be issued for everyone, people using updated documents wouldn't be differentiated from people using the documents issued along with birth certificates at the time of birth.

This solves the problem of the weirdness of having a birth certificate reissued with the immutable facts at the time of birth changed, while it continues to allow people with updates to have a "normal" document like everyone else.

There is some ideological, historical principle for there not to be national IDs in the U.S. I do not recall what the reasoning was. But we do need IDs, so birth certificates, driver's licenses, and, yes, often passports end up being used.

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

Birth certificates are registered by some authority -- the vital records department of the state(? city? couny?) in which you were born. This makes good sense, because it's recording some event which certifiably took place there.

This not-birth certificate would likewise need some point of registration and issuance, but if it reflects ongoing and updated circumstances, it doesn't particularly make sense to tie it to the place where you were born. But having it centralized, as in a national database, only aggrivates all those government trust and privacy issues. (And accuracy: a read-only database is always more reliable than a read-write one.)

It looks like the way things work now, in the event of an appropriate legal change in status elsewhere, you need to get a judge to issue a court order to your home state to make the birth certificate change (or amendedment, with or without an asterisk, and with or without blocking access to the original -- see here (http://www.drbecky.com/birthcert.html) for some state-by-state policies re. sex changes).

Tricky in the details...

[magid.livejournal.com]

I agree, definitely tricky in the details. We have drivers licenses, though, that change state of issuance if we move, so perhaps it's not as insurmountable? Keep the old one until one moves or changes status, then update?

Oh, yeah, it would be another opportunity for local/state government to charge a fee, but presumably it wouldn't be an onerous one.

PS

[magid.livejournal.com]

You're welcome :-)

Re: PS

[(Anonymous)]

*grin*