By Helen Flores

MANILA, Philippines – Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral recently said the bill seeking to shorten the adoption process in the country, now ready for signing by President Arroyo, is expected to increase the number of Filipino children declared as legally free for adoption.

Child welfare advocates have also welcomed the recent passage of the bill in the bicameral conference committee.

Cabral said the bill simplifies rules for adopting children in the country and changes the process from judicial to administrative.

The measure seeks the transfer of cases involving the declaration of children legally available for adoption from the Family Court to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

“We always maintain that there is no better environment for children than a family,” Cabral said in a press conference in Quezon City.

Gwendolyn Pimentel-Gana said it used to take three to five years before a child could be legally adopted, but with the amendment of the Domestic Adoption Act of 1995, the adoption process can be done in one to two years.

“In the administrative procedure, declaring a child legally free for adoption will take 24 days from the date of filing of petition with the DSWD, while in the court proceedings the process takes more than one year from the time of filing the petition until the Court releases the order declaring whether the child is an abandoned or neglected child,” Gana said.

Gana said most foster parents prefer infants.

“They want to adopt babies because they want to feel that they are the real parents,” she said.

John Boren, president of the Adopted Families Foundation, said that while he welcomed the approval of the bill by Congress, there is also a need to push for the lowering of fees of lawyers who handle adoption cases.

Boren, a foster parent, said if there is a group of lawyers who would charge lower fees, prominent and high caliber lawyers would be forced to reduce their professional payment.

He said when the bill is passed into law, foreigners like him will find it easier to adopt a child in the country.

The DSWD and child-caring agencies would also set up adoption help desks in SM malls to provide free consultation to prospective adoptive parents who want to seek advice on adoption procedures.

Adoption is child abuse, slavery and rape all combined into one pretty package and marketed to wealthy infertile couples.

The abuse that the adoptee suffers thoughout their lives comes in many forms.  As infants, they are separated from the only person they have ever known:  their mothers.  They are born into the world expecting to have the familiar scent of family and the warm voice they grew accustomed to in utero, and instead, they are handed over to strangers masquarating as “mommy” and “daddy.”  Because of the severing of the child’s most natural bond occurs at a time when the child cannot communicate his emotions and experiences, it is a trauma that will stay with him into adulthood.  Adopted people report to struggle with their identities as the legal lie that they are “as if born to” their adopters works better on paper than it does in the real world.

Adoptees are more likely to be physically and sexually abused.  One fact that the adoption industry would love to ignore is the fact that children are more likely to be abused by people other than their true parents.  This is really common sense.  Mothers have the primial instinct to care for their children and to ensure the survival of their family trees.  For true families, a baby is not valuable for profit but is living proof of the connection of the past and the future.  Parents have the instinct to protect their children.

However, the abuse of the adopted child ins’t the only crime against him.  Adoptees are stripped of their families, given new names and even false birth certificates make up a new generation of slaves in America.  Children are sold like miniture slaves.  Their birth records are alters to reflect the names of the adopters rather than their parents, and their true birth certificate is sealed away.  They are the only Americans who are denied to know their own name and the names of their parents.

Some are abused, tortured and killed at the hands of those who claim to love them.  Once a person has been stripped of their rights, taken from their family, and forced into an uncomfortable lie, there is no such thing as being fortunate.  In their adopters homes, children are the ones who are expected to do the care taking, to compensate for the babies the adopters couldn’t have, to fill the void in a marriage that has gone stale, or to guard the adopters from the harsh realities of the world.  Adoption’s smallest victims become slaves to the lies that surround them.  Denied of their true parents whereabouts, they have nowhare to run.  And they know what is expected of them to be “as if born to” their adopters, to act out the role they were purchased to play.

An estimation of 2% in U.S. population are adoptees or about 6 million Americans. Surveys state that a huge number of these adoptees and birth parents have, at some point, activly searched for biological parents or children separated by adoption. These people search for many different reasons, including medical knowledge, the desire to know more about the individual’s life, or a major life event, such as the death of an adoptive parent or the birth of a child. The most common reason given, however, is genetic curiosity – a desire to find what a birth parent or child looks like, their talents, and their personality.

Whatever your reasons for deciding to start an adoption search, it is important to realize that it will most likely be a difficult, emotional adventure, full of amazing highs and frustrating lows. Once you’re ready to undertake an adoption search, however, these steps will help you get started on the journey.

Beginning the Search
The first objective of an adoption search is to discover the names of the birth parents who gave you up for adoption, or the identity of the child you relinquished.

1. Just like a genealogy search, an adoption search should always begin with yourself. Write down everything you know about your birth and adoption, from the name of the hospital in which you were born to the agency which handled your adoption.

2. The best place to turn next, is your adoptive parents. They are the ones most likely to hold possible clues. Write down every bit of information they can provide, no matter how insignificant it may seem. If you feel comfortable, then you can also approach relatives and family friends with your questions.

3. Gather together all available documents. Ask your adoptive parents or contact the appropriate government official for documents such as an amended birth certificate, petition for adoption, and the final decree of adoption.

4. Contact the Agency or the State that handled your adoption for your non-identifying information. This non-identifying information will be released to the adoptee, adoptive parents, or birthparents, and may include clues to help you in your adoption search. The amount of information varies depending upon the details that were recorded at the time of the birth and adoption. Each agency, governed by state law and agency policy, releases what is considered appropriate and non-identifying, and may include details on the adoptee, adoptive parents, and birth parents such as:
* Medical history
* Health status
* Cause of and age at death
* Height, weight, eye, hair color
* Ethnic origins
* Level of education
* Professional achievement
* Religion

On some occasions, this non-identifying information may also include the parents ages at time of birth, the age and sex of other children, hobbies, general geographical location, and even the reasons for the adoption.

5. Register in State and National Reunion Registries, also known as Mutual Consent Registries, which are maintained by government or private individuals. These registries work by allowing each member of the adoption triad to register, hoping to be matched with someone else who might be searching for them. One of the best is the International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR).

6. Join an adoption support group or mailing list. Beyond supplying much needed emotional support, adoption support groups can also provide you with information concerning current laws, new search techniques, and up-to-date information. Adoption search angels may also be available to assist with your adoption search.

7. If you’re very serious about your adoption search and have the financial resources (there is usually a substantial fee involved), consider petitioning for the services of a Confidential Intermediary (CI). Many states and provinces have instituted intermediary or search and consent systems to allow adoptees and birth parents the ability to contact each other through mutual consent. The CI is given access to the complete court and/or agency file and, using the information contained in it, attempts to locate the individuals. If and when contact is made by the intermediary, the person found is given the option of allowing or refusing contact by the party searching. The CI then reports the results to the court; if the contact has been refused that ends the matter. If the person located agrees to contact, the court will authorize the CI to give the name and current address of the person sought to the adoptee or birthparent. Check with the state in which your adoption occurred as to the availability of an Confidential Intermediary System.

Once you’ve identified the name and other identifying information on your birth parent or adoptee, your adoption search can be conducted in much the same way as any other people search investigation.

By Valerie Kay Gwin,    From  Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul

I tiptoed into your room one night.
I watched you sleeping there.
Your tiny body looked so snug
Wrapped in peaceful slumber’s care.

I thought of how you came to be
The child we’d longed to know.
I wondered at the sight of you:
“How could she let you go?”

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I
Felt the pain she must have known.
For I will have to let you go
Some day when you are grown.

A mother I might never meet
Had given me her son.
Yet, surely as you’ve filled my heart,
A piece of hers you’d won.

“How could she let you go?”
The question kept returning.
And in the depths of my own heart.
A question kept on burning.

“How can I ever let you go
When years have come and gone?”
I stood there by your crib until
The nighttime turned to dawn.

And as the sun peeked through the shades,
The voice of God broke through.
“I trusted her to give him life
And now I’m trusting to you.

“To show him what is right and wrong,
to love him and to be
The one who teaches him the way
To come back home to me.

“He wasn’t hers to give, you know.
And he’s not yours to own.
I’ve placed him in your life to love
But he is mine … on loan.”

For foster families who choose to adopt the child or children in their care, there are a number of ways to help these children make the emotional transition from being “a ward of the State or the Court” to being “a son or daughter” of specific parents. While parents may appreciate the difference in the child’s role within their family, children may not clearly comprehend the difference between being a foster child versus being an adopted child when they continue to live in the same family. There are specific things families can say and do to help children understand these differences. This factsheet describes:

* Talking with children about the changes
* Activities to help children understand their own history and background
* Helping children adjust to losses
* Helping children transfer attachments

Talking With Children About the Changes

In preparing to talk to children about the changes that occur with adoption, parents and other caring adults in children’s lives should remember to engage the child in the process and listen carefully to the words the child uses and to the questions the child asks. Questions about the birth family and their status may need to be addressed. It is important to always tell the truth – even if it is painful – and to validate the child’s experience and feelings. While these talks may bring up painful feelings for children, and for parents who love them, helping children to grieve can also help them to move on to a feeling of permanency in their foster/adoptive family.

Talks between parents and children about the differences in status within the foster family and the adoptive family will probably need to be repeated several times and in a variety of ways, so children can fully understand at their own level. It is best if these conversations take place when the parent and child are engaged in activities together. Adoption professional H. Craig-Oldsen offers the following suggestions for making these talks beneficial for the child:

Plan the discussion. In collaboration with the social worker, the parents should decide if they want to talk with the child first and have the social worker reinforce what was said in a later conversation, or if they would like to talk to the child together about the change from being in foster care to being adopted. Parents should be prepared to answer the child’s questions that may be raised by the discussion.

Help the child talk about the perceived difference in his or her own words. The parents should ask open-ended questions of the child such as, “How do you think being adopted will be different from being in foster care?” or “What do you think the biggest difference will be, when you’re adopted?”

Help the child draw analogies to something in the child’s own life. For instance, a parent might say, “This is like the time when . . . .”

There are a number of changes in status that will affect the child, and these should be discussed, depending on the child’s developmental level.

1. To help the child understand the legal differences between foster care and adoption, foster parents might talk about how the adoption court hearing is different from other court hearings the child might have remembered from foster care. Some parents may explain adoption by using marriage as an analogy. The court hearing is like the marriage ceremony, and the adoption certificate is like the marriage certificate that makes the relationship legal and permanent. (Parents who use this analogy should be prepared for questions about divorce, depending on the child’s experience.)

2. Older children who are aware of the foster care board payment or adoption assistance their parents receive might be helped to understand the financial differences inherent in foster care and adoption. These payments might be compared to a child’s allowance; older children may be able to understand the payments as costs to meet the child’s needs. Experienced adoptive parents note the importance of honesty, compassion, and developmental appropriateness in conversations with children regarding these issues.

3. To help children understand the parenting differences between foster care and adoption, parents might remind the child that when in foster care, the parents had to get a permission slip signed by an agency social worker to go on a field trip, spend the night at a friend’s house, or travel across State lines; now that their foster parents are their legal parents, the parents can sign permissions for these types of things without needing to go through an agency or court.

Generally, an adopted child inherits from adoptive parents and may not inherit from biological parents unless specifically named in a will; however, in the states of Colorado, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming, the adopted person’s right to inherit from birthparents and birth relatives is retained. In some states (for example, Kansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma), whether or not an adopted person is excluded from inheriting from birthparents is not addressed while in many states the adopted person is specifically excluded from inheriting from birthparents.

Although an adopted person may inherit from adoptive parents, whether or not the adopted person will also inherit from adoptive grandparents is not always clear and depends on state laws.

It is best to review current state law and consult an attorney in the event of a question or a desire to provide an inheritance for an adopted-away child. (Two legalistic terms used when discussing inheritance are “adopted-away” and “adopted-in.” An adopted-away child is a child who is born to a family and then leaves the birthparents because of adoption. An “adopted-in” child is a child that enters a family by adoption.)

If the child is adopted by nonrelatives, inheritance generally must come through adoptive parents; however, as recently as 1986, a challenge was made to this assumption in New York. Jessie Best wrote her will in 1973 and provided for her assets to be given to her “issue.” Her daughter had given birth 21 years earlier to a son who had been adopted by nonrelatives.

The executor’s of Best’s will discovered the existence of the adopted child. With the permission of the birthmother, who also had a child born within wedlock, the trustees asked the adoption agency for identifying information since the adopted adult might stand to inherit a considerable sum.

The adoption agency told the adoptive parents, who disclosed the son’s legal name. When the birthmother died in 1980, the trustees asked the court to determine whether the adopted child would share in the division of assets with the child born within wedlock and not adopted.

The court decided the adopted child was “issue” and could inherit; however, the court of appeals overturned this decision.

In a very unusual case, adopted adult Cathy Yvonne Stone alleged she was the birthdaughter of Hank Williams, the late singer. Stone sued to receive part of the royalties accruing to Williams’ estate. Her suit was rejected at a lower court level, but, on appeal, a federal court decided she was entitled to have her case heard by a jury. In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this decision. In addition, the Supreme Court refused to overturn an Alabama Supreme Court decision that decreed Stone was a lawful heir to the estate of Williams.

In the case of a STEPPARENT ADOPTION, the adopted child may inherit from both birthparents and the stepparent in some states, but in other states, the adopted child may only inherit from the custodial parent and stepparent. (See STEPPARENTS.) Author Anne Wiseman French wrote, “In stepparent adoption situations, many states’ statutes mirror New York’s law before the 1987 amendments and preserve the child’s inheritance rights only from and through the biological parent having custody of the child. Other states, however, preserve the child’s inheritance rights from both biological parents.”