Pact, An Adoption Alliance - Adoption and Race: Articles

Adoption and Race: Articles

We Must Defeat the Uniform Adoption Act
by Reuben Pannor, MSW

We must fight the current legislation that would establish a Uniform Adoption Act to be ratified by individual states. It is regressive and punitive and virtually wipes out all of the professional practices we have fought so hard to achieve. Simply stated, this act would seal adoption records for 99 years. As people touched by adoption, how can any of us support an act which denies adopted people access to their birth certificates throughout their entire lives (99 years)? No other group of people is denied this basic civil right. This discrimination alone must compel all of us to say NO! to our legislators when they are asked to vote.

If that is not enough, the act does not serve children. It is focused on adoption as a service to prospective adoptive parents, though it rigidly prioritizes categories of adoptive parents from most to least desirable. It would allow anyone to get into the business of placing babies. This means that profit-seeking businesses with no qualifications or expertise in adoption, no license, no ethical obligation, and no regulations can arrange adoptions and transfer custody of babies for money. Preference for same-race placement will no longer be permitted. Birth parents' rights will be unprotected and the adoption of special-needs children or international adoptions are not addressed. Once passed, the Uniform Adoption Act replaces all existing state laws on adoption. Although there is much that needs to be done to get adoption back on track, this legislation has more wrong with it than right. We urge your opposition to this Act because it places children in legal jeopardy along with birth- and adoptive parents.

What can you do to help defeat the Uniform Adoption Act?

Right this minute, while you are thinking about it, add your name to a national petition against passage by signing the following and mailing it to Pact and to organizations in opposition to the Uniform Adoption Act, to the Child Welfare League, etc.