The Adoption and Safe Families Act: Creating a False Dichotomy between Parents' and Childrens' Rights

Abstract

At the end of 1999, there were approximately 550,000 children in foster care in the United States, almost double the number in care in the mid-1980s (Administration for Children and Families, 2000). This increase has been attributed to various factors from parental use of illegal drugs to over zealousness on the part of professionals who have misinterpreted the reasonable efforts requirement in federal law to require such extraordinary efforts that families have not been reunited nor children freed for adoption. In the 1990s, Congress acted several times to reduce the foster care population by increasing a child's chance of being adopted. In 1994, the Multiethnic Placement Act, which supports transracial adoptions, was enacted. The 1994 Act was amended by the Adoption Promotion and Stability Act of 1996, making any consideration of race, color, or national origin in placing a child for adoption a potential violation of the anti-discrimination provisions in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In 1997, Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), discussed below in detail, which reflects a shift in philosophy away from the family-preservation/family-reunification theme that has been prevalent since 1980 to a focus on achieving permanency through adoption. In this article, I question the necessity of ASFA and the false dichotomy it creates between parents-rights and childrens-rights. Following a brief discussion of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 the key provisions in ASFA are reviewed. Next, I will argue that ASFA is unnecessary because its goals were attainable under the AACWA, had there been proper implementation.