Laws Should Foster Adoptions

Last week, in a shady, residential neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Mother Teresa and Hillary Rodham Clinton came together to dedicate a new home for unwed mothers and their babies.

With the Clintons, one never knows what is genuine and what is tactical. But it is reported that the first lady pulled lots of bureaucratic strings to ensure that this home would become a reality, and for that, she deserves honor and praise.

During the ceremony, Clinton said she and Mother Teresa - though divided on the question of abortion - are united in a desire to see more adoptions.

By becoming a partner with Mother Teresa, Clinton didn’t take just a tentative step in the pro-adoption direction; she went for total immersion - reminiscent of the way she had dressed in a full black mantilla for her visit to Pope John Paul II last year.

The Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children, unlike similar homes around the country, will not support women in whatever decision they take regarding their children.

Mother Teresa could not be clearer about her views on abortion. “Abortion is like killing Jesus in the heart of the mother,” she told the crowd gathered for the center’s opening last week.

Nor will the home support women who decide to raise their babies by themselves.

No, the Mother Teresa Home is specifically for women who will give up their children for adoption to married couples who cannot have children.

Mother Teresa is as orthodox a Catholic as you will find. At her adoption center in Calcutta, she even refuses to consider married couples who have used fertility treatments. The church’s position, boiled down, amounts to no sex without babies and no babies without sex.

But Mother Teresa has placed more than 3,000 babies for adoption in Calcutta and waxes lyrical about the joy they feel and have brought to their parents.

Perhaps some of that life-affirming spirit has touched the first lady. At least, she is saying now that she thinks adoption ought to be encouraged.

But even as the first lady of the United States and the first lady of charity were joining hands to promote adoption, there was bad news across town and across the country.

The Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal by the parents of Baby Richard, the 4-year-old Illinois boy who has been turned over (“returned” is inaccurate in this context) to his biological father. On the morning of the transfer, the child begged his adoptive parents not to send him away, promising, “I’ll be good.”

The same week, a California judge issued a ruling in the case of the Rost twins - the 18-month-old girls who legally were placed for adoption at 2 weeks of age after their birth parents had signed away their rights.

The birth father’s mother, however, had a scheme to get the girls for herself. After the twins had been placed with the Rosts in Columbus, Ohio, the grandmother searched the family records and discovered a great-great-great-grandfather who was Pomo Indian. She then registered the children as Indians under the Indian Child Welfare Act. That was sufficient to trigger the act and send the case to court - despite the clear renunciation of all rights by the birth parents.

Last week, the California judge ruled that 1/32 Indian is enough; the twins should go to their paternal-birth grandmother.

Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, is rushing to amend the act to prevent this kind of abuse (children would have to be registered at birth, not retroactively).

But where is the common sense of judges in this country? How can they send screaming children - Baby Jessica, Baby Richard, the twins and more - to strangers merely on the grounds of blood ties, however attenuated?

Children need love, stability and continuity, above all. In each of these cases (except the twins), the birth parents have demonstrated rank irresponsibility. That alone ought to have been enough for the judges to say, “Sorry, you - not your child - must bear the consequences of your behavior.” But they didn’t.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is reputed to be a fine lawyer. Perhaps she could make a good contribution to reforming the laws - and the judges - on adoption.

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