A Solution Waiting to be Adopted
by Charmaine Crouse Yoest
When 48-year-old Hillary Rodham
Clinton confessed to Time magazine recently that she wanted to adopt a child, it
set off a small tempest of controversy. Her comment was hailed by supporters as evidence
of her bona fides as a child advocate and decried by detractors as yet another
reincarnation of the First Lady as First Mother. Some dismissed the remark as an effort to
minimize the fallout from her husband's veto of the bill to ban partial-birth abortions.
Interpretations aside, the incident highlights the unique
position adoption occupies in our political firmament. Although many in the adoption
community wish it were otherwise, adoption is closely tied to the abortion question. And
as abortion politics grow more heated, adoption demands attention as the nearest thing to
middle ground in a polarizing issue.
But adoption is enmeshed in politics of its own. It
continues to suffer from the controversy over transracial placements and from the
bureaucratic delays of the foster-care system. President Clinton, for example, says he
will support a House bill that would prohibit states from denying adoptions based on race,
but the proposal faces intense opposition from special interest groups attached to the
Democratic Party.
This complex issue has two sides: infant adoption and
adoption out of foster care. For many years now, only 1 to 2 percent of women faced with
unwanted pregnancies have made adoption plans. At the same time, the number of couples
waiting to adopt is usually estimated at around 2 million. The tragic paradox is that
while many families desperately wait for children, many children wait for families.
According to the Institute for Children, state welfare agencies have adoption plans for
100,000 foster-care children nationwide, and 50,000 are legally free to be adopted but are
languishing in foster care.
The National Association of Black Social Workers has for
years decried adoption of black infants by white families as "racial genocide."
Accepted social-work practice holds that a child be held in foster care until an
"appropriate" -- read "racially correct" -- family is found. This
sometimes occurs even when a white family is waiting to adopt a particular minority child.
In theory, race-matching of infants and adoptive parents makes sense; in practice, it
means that minority children in some states typically wait two to three years longer for
new homes than white children.
Meanwhile, children are often trapped in foster care by the
false hopes of the "family preservation" philosophy. With misguided compassion,
social workers and judges work to preserve families broken apart by drug addiction and
physical abuse, when the children need loving, stable homes. Moreover, the foster-care
system is sustained by monetary incentives to keep children in care: Federal money comes
into the system based on each day a child stays in foster care. The hurdles to get a child
into a permanent adoptive home are high, while the incentives are low. As a result,
children can drift in the system for years, waiting for the elusive "family
reunification."
Eva is one of those children. She last saw her biological
mother 10 years ago, when she was eight. Her biological father is not involved in her life
in any way. But 1996 was a year of exciting milestones for Eva. She graduated from high
school, and a court finally approved her adoption by her long-term foster parents. It took
the law a long time to sanction the family they'd already formed--eight and a half years
ago.
Why the delay? Eva's biological father refused to consent
to the adoption. Eva wants her story told because it isn't over. Her two younger brothers
have been living in a residential placement center for nearly nine years, even though her
new family would like to adopt them as well. Compassion and common sense say yes; red tape
says no. Eva's story is much too common. The time that children spend in foster care
before their situations are resolved can be excruciatingly long. Ten percent of children
in foster care stay more than 7.4 years. And the number of children in state care keeps
increasing. Between 1982 and 1992, the number rose 69 percent, from 262,000 children to
442,000.
Behind the statistics are thousands of Evas yearning for
homes. Fortunately, reform is in the air. Frustration with lengthy stays in foster care,
rising incidents of child abuse, and concern over persistently high abortion rates are
helping to focus renewed attention on adoption.
Various efforts -- by private groups, state governments,
and Congress--aim to reform the system to let needy children connect with a loving family.
The following are some recent initiatives:
The Texas Model
Texas governor George W. Bush presides over one of 10
states in which 75 percent of the nation's foster-care population resides. Texas currently
has 12,000 children in foster care, of whom 1,400 are available for adoption. But even the
children ready for permanent homes may face a long journey: It usually takes the state two
years after termination of parental rights to place these children in permanent adoptive
homes. Most important from a child's view, foster care itself is a pretty bumpy ride:
children average four different placements before they get a permanent adoption.
The 1996 annual report of the Texas Department of
Protective and Regulatory Services found that, since 1991, the average length of stay for
children who were ultimately adopted was 40.8 months. It took 15 months to terminate
parental rights after entering foster care, another 18 months to be placed for adoption,
and another seven months to finalize the adoption.
Bush wants to cut the time kids spend in foster care in
half, and has established the Governor's Committee to Promote Adoption to help make Texas
a model of adoption reform. The 13-person committee includes several adoptive parents,
pastors, and representatives of private adoption efforts such as One Church and One Child.
It is due to hand the governor a report in September identifying state policies that
hinder adoption. State adoptions, for example, are subject to challenge up to two years
after the finalization of the adoption decree -- leaving families and children in a legal
limbo.
So far the committee has targeted two areas for reform:
judicial and administrative. Beverly Jimmerson, Policy Advisor to the governor, notes that
courts waste a lot of time when they fail to schedule prompt hearings concerning a child's
adoption status. In addition, the committee has discovered that state agencies providing
social services to adults fail to prioritize parents who need mental services or addiction
treatment. Parents may wait months, or even years, for treatment while their children
languish in foster care. The committee's goal is to propose a legislative reform agenda
for the 1997 legislative session.
Kids and the Race Card
A significant reason for adoption delays in Texas and other
states is the ongoing debate over leaving minority children in foster care until suitable
minority parents can adopt them -- even though white families are willing and able to take
the children in. That battle is now being waged in Washington in the form of the Adoption
Promotion and Stability Act. The bill, which passed the House and remains in Senate
committee, proposes three significant policy changes:
- Give a $5,000 tax credit to middle-class families that adopt children. The bill
provides a tax credit for families with income under $75,000 to offset their expenses in
adoption. Agency fees, court costs, and attorney fees can create an insurmountable hurdle
for many families that might otherwise be able to adopt.
- Prohibit the practice of denying adoptions based on race. The goal is to stop
state agencies from using racial considerations to delay or prevent adoption of children
under their care. In 1994, former senator Howard Metzenbaum shepherded to passage the
Multi-Ethnic Placement Act to eliminate racial barriers to adoption. In designing
regulations to implement the bill, the Department of Health and Human Services under
Secretary Donna Shalala essentially nullified its race-neutral intent.
- Amend the Indian Child Welfare Act to prevent tribes from nullifying adoptions.
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a federal law passed in 1978, grants Indian tribes
the legal standing to contest the adoption of any baby with any Indian ancestry. At the
time, the law was necessary to halt unethical adoption practices that preyed on Indian
babies. But the act, which assigned the tribe a legal interest in the child "on a
parity with the interest of the parents," has strayed into reverse racism.
A current Ohio adoption case illustrates how convoluted and
damaging this mindset can be. The Rost family adopted two twin girls. Subsequently, the
birth-grandmother decided she wanted the babies. Grandparents do not have standing to
contest an adoption; under the ICWA, Indian tribes do. The grandmother then retroactively
enrolled herself, her son, and the twins in the Pomo Tribe of California. The tribe is now
contesting the adoption on the grounds that three of the twins' 32
great-great-great-grandparents were Pomo Indian. Courts have previously decided that as
little as one-256th of Indian blood (that's one
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent) qualifies a case for consideration under
the ICWA.
The ramifications for adoption could be enormous. Senator
Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado informed the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that,
although there are just over a million people officially enrolled in tribes, at least 15
million Americans can claim Indian ancestry. Echoing the National Association of Black
Social Workers, Congressman Don Young of Arkansas told the committee that adoption of
Indian children outside the tribe amounted to "a form of brain drain and
genocide." While adults argue over rights and racism, children are the ones who wait
and suffer.
Casey Goes to Bat for Kids
A new private project to promote both infant adoption and
adoption out of foster care is the Fund for the American Family, founded last summer by
former Pennsylvania governor Robert Casey. A prominent pro-life Democrat, Casey is
marshaling his political clout to raise the profile of adoption, which he believes is a
cornerstone in rebuilding the American family. He is lobbying heavily on adoption reform
and recently testified before Congress in support of the adoption tax credit.
Making adoption a national priority is one of the group's
top four projects. It has already sponsored two adoption summits, bringing together
leading experts to discuss ways of breaking down the barriers to adoption. Casey expects
to publish a set of reform proposals this fall to spur state and federal officials to
reform the system.
"Our goal is to see 100,000 adoptions each year for
the next five years," up from 50,000, says Chris Casey, the executive director of the
fund. To realize this goal, Casey is trying to bring together all 50 governors for a
summit similar to the 1989 governor's conference on education. Contact Chris Casey, 1555
Wilson Blvd., Suite 300, Arlington, Va. 22209-2405. Tel.: 1-800-420-8733, fax:
703-522-4969.
A Memo for Reform
In 1993, the Cambridge-based Institute for Children began
Assignment Adoption to change foster-care and adoption practices in all 50 states. In the
first 12 months after Massachusetts governor William Weld signed on to the initiative,
adoptions from foster care increased by about 47 percent. The Institute is now working
with Texas governor George Bush and recommended to his Adoption Committee the following
plan for reform:
1. Make foster care a truly temporary form of caring for vulnerable children; enact
policies and practices that have as their goal a 12-month maximum stay for children in
substitute care.
2. Grant biological parents no more than 12 months to prove their fitness to resume
custody of their children.
3. Give biological fathers 30 days from the birth of the child to formalize paternity,
or forfeit the right to contest adoption.
4. Prohibit any race-based delays in adoption.
5. Terminate parental rights for abandoned children after 30 days, and allow them to be
adopted through a private agency--without placement in long-term foster care.
6. Find adoptive homes for children within 30 days after the termination of parental
rights or contract the process out to a private agency.
7. Make entrance requirements for foster families as stringent as those for adoptive
families.
8. Hold the state Department of Human Services accountable for reporting its progress
in finding homes for children in foster care.
9. Encourage private-sector involvement in improving components of the substitute-care
system.
