Bastard Nation is a North American adult adoptee political advocacy and support organization.

It was founded in 1996 by denizens of the Usenet newsgroup alt.adoption Shea Grimm, Damsel Plum, Marley Greiner and Lainie Petersen.

The original intent of the organization was to support adult adoptees in gaining access to their original birth certificates as a civil right, rather than as a vehicle for facilitating a search, which had been the aim of prior open records organizations.

The group has been successful in getting several states in the United States to approve legislation to open sealed records, for example in Oregon by Ballot Measure 58,[6] described in the book Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation & Ballot Initiative 58 [7] by E. Wayne Carp (2004).

[8] The name is a reference to the fact that most adopted children were born illegitimate, hence are literally bastards.