FEDERAL ACCELERATED PARENTAL RIGHTS TERMINATION

A recent article by John Wasowicz lucidly explains the new Virginia legislation that seeks to end the awful spectacle of children languishing in foster care for years by requiring speedier decisions on parental rights so that they can be adopted faster. All this may be moot, however, when a new federal statute that is being very aggressively pushed by the Clinton Administration becomes law. That proposal, now known as the Adoption Assistance Act of 1997, would make very profound changes in how our society views parenthood and the "reallocation" of children between parents by government intervention. This proposal, which now exists in at least three different forms including HR867, and S.511, would require all the states to adopt statutes to accelerate the termination of parental rights. It would also give state welfare departments a cash bonus of $4,000.00 per child for every time parental rights are terminated and the child is placed on the fast track to adoption. And whereas current federal statutes require the states to require "reasonable efforts to attempt to reunite the family" in this process, the federal proposals would (A) drop that requirement and (B) in fact forbid the welfare authorities to use "reasonable efforts" in a number of kinds of cases (a list which in fact takes in virtually all the kinds of cases which cause children to be taken from their parents and end up in foster care in the first place). Of course they include allegations of child sexual abuse and "aggravated physical abuse," along with a vast number of other "special" categories. The law has been much touted by the President and First Lady, but has been lobbied the most aggressively by organizations of adoption lawyers.