By Lee Cullum, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – Five years ago Nancy Huggins, then a Dallas banker, adopted twins in Romania. It was an arduous effort that took over a year, forcing her to fly to Bucharest many times and endure long delays, one while she watched her little boy suffer from pneumonia in an orphanage. Finally, she returned to Dallas with the two babies, Brent and Lauren, and began her new life as a mother.
Romania and other Eastern European nations have been fertile, if difficult, territory for American parents seeking children to adopt. Now all that will end if Lady Emma Nicholson of Britain, also called the Baroness of Winterbourne, is allowed to dominate the issue. Lady Nicholson has been assigned the job of shepherding Romania into the European Union. Romania is not one of the ten states in current negotiations, but it plus two others are being considered for later membership. And, in an unfortunate turn of fate, it is Romania that will be the test case for all nations that enter the EU. If opponents of international adoptions prevail there, they will rule all over Europe.
This is "a tragedy," says Diane Kunz, executive director of the Center for Adoption Policy Studies in Rye, New York. The mother of two daughters adopted from China, she sees in those who are fighting international adoption "a pernicious left-right coalition." Liberals don't like it because they believe children should not be taken from their own national setting. They call it "cultural genocide," and they seem to feel, said Ms. Kunz, that "cultural genocide is worse than real genocide."
She points out that Africa will produce 20 million orphans over the next decade. And herein lie the objections on the right, which can only be described as racist.
So effective has the Baroness been that now Romanian adoptions by parents in the U.S., Britain, France and Israel have stopped altogether. This will mean more Romanian children in orphanages and foster care, hardly a desirable alternative to a permanent home.
One reason would-be parents in America so often look abroad is the trouble they find adopting here at home. New York, among other states, has no statute governing the rights of biological fathers. They can turn up at any time, demanding the child. So adoptions often are delayed for many months. Such uncertainty drastically decreases the number of families willing to adopt domestically. Florida, to universal amazement, has tried to solve the problem of biological fathers by requiring any birth mother who wants to have her baby adopted to advertise in local newspapers, listing the names and descriptions of any men with whom she has had sexual contact. This law applies not only to women of consensual age, but also to girls of 12 who have been raped by their stepfathers. Does this make any sense?
Texas, it is good to hear, has the best adoption laws in the country. People can get a full and final decree in a reasonable length of time. The state's most famous adoptive mother, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, has introduced legislation in Washington to permit children adopted by U.S. military and government people working abroad automatically to become citizens. She is part of a Senate caucus working to improve the adoption process in the United States and preserve this option around the world. The future of millions of infants and children, who deserve real homes, not orphanages and foster care, depends on the success of this effort.
As for Brent and Lauren Huggins, after a rocky beginning they are doing very well. It proves, says their mother, that "miracles can be accomplished."
Lee Cullum is a frequent contributor to The Dallas Morning News and to KERA.