AAC Response

Response of the American Adoption Congress to Testimony Submitted to the Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Senate, for the Hearing on the Hague Convention

October 5, 1999

The American Adoption Congress (AAC) appreciates this opportunity to present its response to the testimony submitted by adoption organizations and individuals on Tuesday, October 5, 1999, concerning S. 682. We are particularly grateful to Senator Helms and Senator Landrieu for their efforts in drafting legislation to implement the Hague Convention.

The AAC, founded in 1978, is a national organization comprised of individuals, families and adoption professionals committed to adoption reform. We represent all whose lives are touched by adoption. Through education and advocacy, we promote honesty, openness and respect for family connections in public policy.

AAC supports ratification of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption if and only if implementing legislation establishes adequate safeguards for children and parents.

Article 30 of the Convention states that identifying information and the medical history of the child must be preserved and that the child or his representative shall have access to such information. Section 401 of S. 682 deprives adoptees of this access. We urge you to revise this section so that it conforms to the language in Article 30.

Our organization strongly supports the requirement in Section 105(a)(3) that the number of disrupted intercountry adoptions be reported. According to a recent article in "Adoptive Families" magazine, in 1999 in the United States, there were 164 agencies and 76 local service agencies working in international adoption, as well as a large number of unlicensed facilitators and private legal firms. These agencies and facilitators must be held accountable. While we respect the Child Welfare League and the Joint Council on International Children's Services, we do not agree with their request that this requirement be deleted. Dr. Ronald Federici and Barbara Holtan of Tressler Lutheran Services presented testimony on Tuesday about the rising number of disrupted adoptions in the past few years. With over 15,000 children immigrating into the United States for adoption in 1998 alone, it is critical that these disruptions be tracked, including the country of origin and the responsible agencies or persons providing adoption services in both countries.

The requirement that children emigrating from the United States must be adopted by a married couple should be deleted (Sec. 303(b)(1)(B)). There is no similar requirement for children immigrating into the United States. The requirement may cause other Convention countries to retaliate and restrict adoption of their children to married couples in the U.S.

We also heard testimony that many agencies and facilitators are not available to the adoptive parents once the adoption is finalized and the fees, often exorbitant, collected. AAC recommends that Adoption Services, as defined in Section 3(3)(F), be revised so that an agency responsible for arranging an adoption is also required to provide a full range of post-adoption services, not simply post-placement monitoring. It could reasonably be expected that the number of disruptions would decrease as adoptive parents have an opportunity for counseling and other post-placement services. As Barbara Holtan said so well, "Adoption is not an act; it is a process. Far too many adoption agencies and facilitators see it only as the act of getting the child. Far more attention must be paid to the long view: the process of raising that child to adulthood."