Friday, October 17, 1997
Complicating adoption
In Washington, even efforts to simplify things grow incredibly
complex.
That's what's happened to a relatively non-controversial effort
to help make adoptions easier.
The U.S. House, by a whopping 416-5 vote, passed a careful
relaxation of the legal requirement that states make "reasonable
efforts" to re-unite kids in foster care with their natural
parents. While commendable, states complain the existing law makes
it too easy for irresponsible parents to temporarily get their
kids back when it's already been determined they're unfit.
If the biological parents relapse, the kids go to a second
foster family, then a third, and a fourth. At worst, social workers
may arrive too late at the biological home to save a child from
grave injury or death.
The House measure would still favor natural parents, except
those who had severely abused, tortured or abandoned a child.
It was a good, carefully thought-out reform.
Alas, the Senate has larded it up with nearly $4 billion in
additional adoption programs. Some are great ideas, though critics
complain they don't have the safeguards of the House's single
reform effort. And they're so expensive even the original plan
is now considered dead for this year.
Can't Congress do anything without creating a costly, cumbersome
giftbag?
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Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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