The adoption tax credit appears to now be “safe” – saved from devastating elimination in a last minute amendment in the House and protected in the Senate.
In D.C., lawmakers are patting themselves on the back, pointing to these actions as if they somehow demonstrate that legislators are supporting families. That through these tax credits, they’re keeping kids out of foster care. Making it possible for loving, deserving families to adopt.
And I think it’s disgusting.
The adoption tax credit isn’t doing what it intended, and our lawmakers don’t even come close to taking real actions to keep children out of foster care and in loving, permanent homes.
The adoption credit was originally a bipartisan idea to encourage families to adopt children out of the foster care system.
The reality is, it has not solved the problem of children stuck in the foster care system.
In my home state of Ohio, we have 453 kids and sibling groups waiting to be adopted. Nationwide, there are 100,000 kids waiting. And yet we often hear the somewhat questionable statistic that for every baby put up for adoption, there are 36 couples waiting.
While it’s hard to track down a reliable source of the exact demand for adoption, clearly there’s a disconnect. Instead of spurring foster care adoptions, the tax credit has eased the admittedly real financial burden of infant adoption, commonly costing tens of thousands of dollars in an often coercive and emotionally fraught system. Parents will wait years for a newborn baby to bring home while tens of thousands of children wait in foster care.
It’s a problem. And while the credit does help those families who pursue adoption out of the foster system, it’s not doing nearly enough, and the resources supporting families adopting outside the traditional closed-adoption-of-an-infant world are insufficient. There are intense social and emotional supports needed to help families who adopt from foster care succeed, and the resources are virtually nonexistent.
While a tax credit might offset a small portion of the cost of integrating an adopted older child into a family, there certainly aren’t any tax credits supporting the pregnant person facing the agonizing choice to abort, parent or put a child up for adoption. For that person, there are far too few resources and far too much dogma, judgement and bad options.
The Donaldson Adoption Institute did a study to better understand how the counseling pregnant people receive when considering adoption affects their experience. According to the study, “Much of the information that adoption professionals reported discussing with expectant parents during the first few meetings focused on adoption-related concerns rather than full consideration of all of the parents’ options.” Of note in the study, “References by adoption professionals to termination of the pregnancy as a viable option for expectant mothers were limited,” and, “Less than half of adoption professionals specifically mentioned discussing information related to parenting their child or methods for helping expectant parents problem-solve how this might occur.”
And in its research with birth parents in the study, the institute found many felt regret over their decision to place their child up for adoption, many going so far as to say they wouldn’t make the same choice again.
It’s easy to draw the conclusion that better pre-adoption counseling – a better understanding of all choices a pregnant person has – would have made the difference for these women.
But as I dug a litter deeper into the study, I saw that of the 28 participants, 15 of them had some college experience and 20 of them lived with a partner or were married. As the founder of a pro-choice adoption agency, I see it as my responsibility to ensure the pregnant people we serve understand all of their options – adoption, abortion and parenting – and make the choice that is right for them. The choice that gives them peace in their hearts.
A college education, financial security and a supportive partner are just not the reality for so many of the pregnant people we work with who are facing that agonizing choice.
In our experience, almost none have college degrees at the time of placement, very few have had any contact with the father of the child and most are not married or living with anyone. Their access to resources looks much different than a person who has access to higher education and has a partner who can share the responsibility of raising a child.
For the people we serve, the harsh reality is the world and our lawmakers don’t care about them or their children. The resources are bare and hard to find. And when found, these resources are hard to access.
What’s even more appalling to me is that in this same tax plan revision, our lawmakers not only considered cutting the limited money that would give living, breathing kids a better chance at finding an adoptive home and but they attempted to give money to unborn children by making them designated beneficiaries. We aren’t caring for the children already struggling in our systems, yet our lawmakers would hurt foster children’s chances of adoption and in the same penstroke give financial rights to a fetus.
These cuts weren’t about caring for the American people. About caring for women. About caring for kids. About caring for families. These cuts were about pushing agendas.
The elimination of the adoption credit was just another blatant way of showing that our lawmakers care about the unborn child more than the born child. About the unborn child more than women. About the unborn child more than families.
While they argue about the adoption credit, they continue to do nothing to build the social support programs that have been systematically gutted and leave pregnant people without options or resources. They do nothing to provide solid parenting foundations, quality affordable child care and opportunities for upward mobility for pregnant people. They do nothing to provide the education, understanding and support the foster care system needs to connect with adoptive families and guide them to success. And they decimate and dismantle women’s access to abortion.
Our lawmakers may have saved the adoption credit, but it was clear long ago they’d abandoned pregnant people.
So, even though I’m the founder of an adoption agency and an advocate for open adoption, I cannot applaud the House’s amendment or the Senate’s refusal to cut the credit.
If we really want to keep more children out of the foster care system – and truly care for all kids – lawmakers need to increase financial aid and supports to low income people, increase living expenses for people wanting to place their children up for adoption and stop cutting women’s reproductive rights.
Keep the federal adoption credit as is. It’s a needed tool. But it’s a pittance of the financial, emotional and social support system our most at-risk pregnant people need. And until that support is in place, we all need to continue to demand our lawmakers provide better for our pregnant people. And I’ll continue to ensure those pregnant people have access and understanding of all their choices.
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Molly Rampe Thomas is founder and CEO of Choice Network, a pro-choice adoption agency that trusts people and their choices. The agency is on a mission to change the definition of family through supported open adoptions, no judgment abortion conversations and active parenting resources and counsel. For more information, visit choicenetworkadoptions.com
