Could the US Gov't Make Dreams Come True?

Now here’s an interesting idea from Florida Governor Charlie Crist being reported in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

• Create an Office of Adoption and Child Protection to coordinate and streamline adoption efforts statewide.
• Provide an annual $3,000 subsidy to parents who adopt children in state care until the adopted child is 18.
• Families who adopt children with special needs would see an increase in their annual subsidy from $3,600 to about $5,000.
• Special needs children are 8 or older, physically or emotionally handicapped, of black or mixed race or belong to a sibling group that will stay together.

An interesting idea, indeed, but let’s take it a little -- actually, a lot -- further. In a perfect world the United States would…

Create an Office of Adoption of Child Protection to coordinate and streamline adoption efforts nationwide. Parents interested in adopting a child in the United States would send their application and home study to the central agency. Through their application, they would indicate their desire to adopt a child already in their care or another child within their state or elsewhere in the US available for adoption. Children would not be allowed to languish for years in foster care or shuttle from one foster home to the next to the next to the next. The goal would be to get the child adopted as quickly as possible.

Once a birth mother and/or birth father makes the choice not to care for their child, their “parental rights” will immediately end. There will be no “do over”. No chance to go away for a few months or a few years and then, decide that you want your child. There will be no lawsuits to reclaim “parental rights”. This might sound quite harsh to many and I may even get some flack for my hard stance on this subject. However, it is my belief that we must first and foremost consider the child’s rights. Their right to have a family and not to have their family undone by a court ruling. Of course an important component of the program would be the adequate preparation of birth parents to make an informed decision.

Open adoptions would also be handled through the Office of Adoption of Child Protection. It would be illegal for birth mothers to make arrangements directly with an adoptive family. Adoption agencies would act as facilitators, but all paperwork and legal fees would be handled by the central nationwide office.

I believe that if the United States standardized and streamlined the domestic adoption process, we wouldn’t have to classify African American and mixed race children as special needs. And, there would be fewer older children available for adoption because they would be adopted sooner rather than growing up in the foster care system. The increasing number of internationally adopted children proves that American adoptive parents do not shy away from children who are Asian or African. I don’t think that orphaned children in other countries would be forgotten by making our domestic program better. What I think is most important is that the process has got to be made easier for children and families wishing to expand or create their family through adoption.

Of course there are a myriad of other issues that would need to be addressed, such as Governor Crist’s proposed subsidies, what constitutes abandonment, how to avoid the problems such as baby trafficking that we’ve seen internationally, but in my dream it would all come together. I’m actually still mulling over this whole idea of subsidizing parents for adopting children domestically. If we get the program right, there would probably be more potential parents than children available for adoption.

The president who makes this happen would hold a remarkable place in history as well as in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of American families. And, now I’ll be tucking my ruby red shoes back in my closet…