Some Missouri residents who were adopted can now obtain their birth certificates after state law on adoption privacy has become more lenient.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that a state law allowing adoptees born before Jan. 1, 1941 to obtain their original birth certificates went to into effect Sunday (August 28).

Republican state Rep. Don Phillips, an adoptee previously reunited with his birth parents, sponsored the bill.

Phillips says the bill was passed after a passage allowing birth certificate access to descendants of adoptees, such as children and grandchildren, was removed.

In January 2018, adoptees born after 1940 and who are at least 18 will be allowed to request their original birth certificates. Birth parents who want to remain anonymous may file a document with the state that would redact their names from the document.

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