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Report Recommends Birth Records Release
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COAC of Texas, Inc. is a non-profit organization of citizens concerned
about the children who wait for permanent homes. COAC Reports, our
newsletter, is published six times a year and is partially funded by a grant
from the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services,
Membership dues are paid to local branches and include a subscription to
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Join the COAC email list.
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Need a Support Group for your Area?
Several areas of the state have no support groups for adoptive parents. If you would like to form a group or need information about how COAC can help you form a group, please contact Clara Flores, the state President. We would like to help groups form in the Dallas, Tyler, West Texas and other areas of the state. Let us know how we can help.
Texans looking for child care or educational services for children now have a new tool to help their search. More...
Adoption Legislation
Avril Suckow here.
Starting with this edition of COAC Reports, I will report on current legislation that impacts adoption and adoptive families. I will also remind you how identify and contact your state and federal legislators, and strongly urge you to let your legislators know that adoption issues are very important to you and your families.
The following is a very brief synopsis of what NACAC has to say about the Adoption Equality Act and Kinship Caregiver Support Act:
“The North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) is working for passage of the bipartisan Adoption Equality Act (S. 1462 / H.R. 4901), which would ensure that more children adopted from state foster care would be eligible for federal (Title IV-E) adoption assistance.
The Adoption Equality Act would ensure that no child who is adopted from foster care is denied federal support on the basis of his or her birth family's income. The legislation would also require states to reinvest any money saved as a result of the bill into their state child welfare services.
The Adoption Equality Act would ensure that no child adopted from foster care is denied federal support on the basis of the birth family's income.”
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Report Recommends Birth Records Release
A leading adoption institute is advocating that adult adoptees should have access to their birth records and be able to learn the identity of their birth parents.
“States’ experiences in providing this information make clear that there are minimal, if any, negative repercussions,” the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute announced in a comprehensive report. “Outcomes appear to have been overwhelmingly positive for adult adopted persons and birth parents alike.”
Opponents of open access argue that unsealing birth records violates the privacy that birthmothers expected when they opted to give up their babies. They raise the specter of birthparents forced into unwanted relationships with grown children who have tracked them down. But the Donaldson Institute says most birthparents, rather than being fearful and ashamed, welcome contact with the children they bore.
Only eighth states allow such access. Kansas and Alaska never barred adoptees from seeing birth certificates. Since 1996, six other states — Alabama, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee — have opened records. However, open records legislation has been rebuffed in many states. Nationwide, a major foe is the National Council for Adoption, which represents many religiously affiliated adoption agencies.
“I empathize with anybody who feels the need to know their biological parents’ identity,” says Thomas Atwood, the council’s president, "But I don’t think the law should enable them to force themselves on someone who has personal reasons for wanting confidentiality.”
The Donaldson report says there is no proof that abortions rise, that adoptions decline or that birthparents are harassed following a switch to open records.
(From Today’s Pentecostal Evangel, Feb 10 , 2008)
Check out the foster children awaiting adoption on the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange Website.
Learn about becoming a licensed foster/adoptive parent.
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