Adoption Tax Credit and White House Politics: A Gift from God or Sound Public Policy?
by Amie Newman
October 7, 2010 - 7:00am (Print)
James King and his wife Carla have a "deep faith in God." When they married in 1992, notes James, the plan was to start a family. James, speaking into the microphone he grips, says it was Carla's desire from a young age to be a wife and mother. They tried to get pregnant, suffered miscarriages and underwent unsuccessful fertility treatments, all of which caused them, understandably, "extreme pain and sorrow," says James. When they stumbled upon information from Bethany Christian Services, they finally realized their "calling" to adopt. Sarah, the daughter they adopted as a newborn, is a "perfect blessing from God," they say.
Watching the toddler squirm on her mother's lap, play with her sippy cup and hop down to play, it's easy to see the deep love James and Carla have for their daughter.
James also notes that his heart goes out to those couples who experience infertility, and he prays that women who experience unplanned pregnancies "get the help they need." He says that Sarah's birth mother made the "loving choice to give her up for adoption."
I am not pulling this couple's story from a promotional video for the anti-choice, Christian adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services, as much as you may assume this to be the case. It's one of only two families adoption experiences highlighted in a webcast coming from the White House, about the recently extended Adoption Tax Credit.
The Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in partnership with the White House Council on Women and Girls, held the webcast last week on the Adoption Tax Credit, recently extended through 2011, and increased via the passage of the Affordable Care Act. White House Council on Women and Girls head, Tina Chen, hosted the discussion.
The Adoption Tax Credit, established in 1996, has provided families in this country with a $10,000 tax credit to use to cover the costs associated with adoption. Health care reform increased the tax credit to $13,170 this year, for families who adopt, domestically or internationally. The White House is clearly interested in promoting this change - and that is understandable.
And while the webcast was produced specifically about the Adoption Tax Credit and its role in making adoption more affordable and accessible for Americans, what the administration is saying about adoption, to Americans across the country through the webcast, came across loud and clear.
Bethany Christian Services was the only adoption agency invited to participate in this webcast. How is it possible that in a country where 114,000 children (according to the President & CEO of the National Council for Adoption) are awaiting adoption; and where so many gay and lesbian parents would love to become adoptive parents but are shut out; in a country where most adoptions are now open adoptions; and where families come in all shapes and sizes the administration chooses to highlight the perspective and services of only this one?
Kyle and Bethany shared their experience, as well. Kyle and Bethany were married and after undergoing in-vitro fertilization treatments for three years, Bethany gave birth to their son, Mason. Soon after she gave birth to her daughter who was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. This, ultimately, led the couple to adopt their second daughter, Nika, from an orphanage in Russia. Nika also has Down Syndrome.
Nika sits in her father's lap, a smiling little girl who cranes her neck to watch and play with her Dad's face as her mother talks.
It's a beautiful story, to be sure. You'd need to be pretty hard-hearted not to see the love this family has for each other - and the commitment to helping children.
Both families extol the help the Adoption Tax Credit has given them as they struggled to raise money for the adoptions and continue to work hard to cover the costs of raising children. It's undeniable that the tax credit helps adoptive families that need the help. But, overall, this "story" of adoption that the White House has chosen to tell is overwhelmingly limited and, in honesty, unbelievably offensive to so many adoptive families and children waiting to be adopted by loving parents. It's also a story within a story - of women who face unintended pregnancies and are being told, by an anti-choice adoption agency, that they should carry the pregnancy to term and place the baby up for adoption (and if you watch this webcast - it appears to be closed adoptions only) rather than make the decision that's best for them and the families they may already have.
I have written this before - adoption isn't an alternative to abortion. Choosing to carry one's pregnancy to term, give birth to one's baby, and offer one's baby to a family who wants to adopt can only be, what I imagine, a heart-wrenching experience. It's a deep exploration of what's right and best for you and the baby you may have.
The White House missed a tremendous opportunity to present an accurate, realistic portrayal of adoption - for an array of families and children. A brief glimpse at Bethany Christian Services web site confirms that, for the one, single adoption agency invited onto the webcast by the White House, adoption seems to be overwhelmingly the purview of white, heterosexual, Christian couples.
We have so many tens of thousands of chidren - in this country alone - left to grow up in foster care, waiting for an adoptive family; we have tens of thousands of gay and lesbian couples who have created a loving home and wish to adopt. Most children are, in fact, adopted out of the foster care system. And, yet, the only representative for the adoption world is Bethany Christian Services?
The White House had a chance to put a real face on adoption in this country - the faces of not only the diversity of families who go through the adoption experience but of the actual women whose decisions first set these wheels in motion - the birth mothers.
The one line repeated over and over again in this web cast was the idea that this tax credit would help encourage families to "reach into the system" and adopt babies and children who are waiting to be adopted. But if the only example of an adoption agency the White House offers is one where "embryo donation" and "alternatives to abortion" for the birth mother are the preferred roads to travel, over what might best for the pregnant woman and her family, there will continue to be far too many already-existing babies and children living in the foster care system waiting to be adopted.
In a webcast meant to inform and educate about the merits of the Adoption Tax Credit, the families experiences and organizations highlighted were ones which presented an extremely limiting picture of adoption in this country. In fact, James King did get it right - for many adoptive families, the decision to adopt may just be a "calling" and to attempt to sway one segment of Americans to "reach into the system" by offering a financial incentive to adopt, but effectively ignore everyone else who may actually feel called to adopt by presenting them with no representation or resources, while ignoring the birth mothers in the discussion, is not just a missed opportunity but an insult.
To watch the webcast, visit the Department of Health and Human Services web site.
Why give tax credits to the people who adopt? Why not give a tax credit to the women who make the sacrifice of carrying to term (medical bills, time off work, etc)?
If you look at who heads this office within the White House I believe you'll find that the head of the Faith-based initiative is a fairly conservative young man. His personal religious beliefs may have come into play in selecting those who were invited to participate.
Why give tax credits to the people who adopt? Why not give a tax credit to the women who make the sacrifice of carrying to term (medical bills, time off work, etc)?
good point!
I'm generally anti abortion but also in favor of keeping natural families together whenever possible. Sometimes, its not possible. That's why so many older or disabled children are available for adoption through the foster care system (free obviously). Maybe a tax credit for people who adopt these children would be a good idea but the concept of giving tax breaks to people who get exactly what they want (a healthy newborn) is insane. Ironically, agencies like Bethany use poverty as one of their main talking points when trying to drive down the self esteem of expectant moms to the point where they actually believe the best thing for their baby would be another mother! Offer tax breaks to these young families in crisis instead.
I think the typical conservative spin on any legislation that gave money to disadvantaged women for having a baby would be a variation on the "Welfare Queen" myth, or complaints about giving handouts to irresponsible people. There's still a lot of negative sentiment aimed at women with unwanted/unplanned pregnancies, and a lot of folks have the attitude of medical expenses being such a woman's "just reward."
I could see liberals interpreting it as "paying women to give up their babies" or "buying off women considering abortion," effectively turning adoptable infants into more of a commodity than they already are. There's potential for abuse of the system, but that goes without saying. So, the idea of giving a tax-break to women who give babies up for adoption is problematic. Still, I think it would make more sense not to give tax incentives to adopters, since there's a shortage of supply not demand.
Oh I don't mean give a tax break to women who do give babies up for adoption, that would be just more coercion. I mean that giving them a tax break or other financial help may help them so they don't have to give them up.
We HAVE tax breaks for people with kids. They aren't enough to help new moms, single moms, poor moms...
For the last two legislative sessions in AZ, Democrats attempted to increase social services available to new moms, single moms, poor moms... And every legislative session, the Republicans voted it down. It's a handout. It's an entitlement program. Those children with disabilities don't need that much therapy Churches and non-profits will step in. Families should take care of themselves. Not the government's role.
And yet they STILL saw fit to reduce access to abortion, while simultaneously REQUIRING THAT ABORTION PROVIDERS TELL PATIENTS THAT GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS MAY BE AVAILABLE TO HELP.
PLEASE think about who you're voting for, and whether there is ANYTHING pro-life about their voting record. Restricting access to abortion doesn't make you pro-life. It makes you a tunnel visioned legislator.
Why is adoption so expensive? Why can't most adoptions be handled by trained government social workers ?
Child is taken away from unfit parents/surrended by mother and in custody of Social Services and available for adoption --
personnel at Social Services are paid for by government put child on website -
potential parents see child on website and ask to adopt --
personnel at Social Services do background check --
Social Services sends paperwork to Court with government lawyer --
adoption is final.
Government saves money overall because it no longer has to support child
Why is it necessary to pay almost $14,000 per child to private persons to do exactly the same thing that government bureaucrats could do for a lot less without intruding their private ideology into the matter?
that the government, society or religious organizations promote one option over another is coercive! They elevate vulnerable young women into thinking that they are doing something altruistic only to have them experience extreme regret and depression at a later point. In my era, hundreds of thousands of us were forced into giving our babies away because society and religions deemed us to be unfit to raise them simply because we were unwed. Adoption was the only promoted option! I have friends who had babies and got to keep them at the same age I was when I had my child at age 20.
While I have sympathy for infertile women, adoption has transformed from finding a home for a needy child to finding a home for a needy woman. People must recognize that infertility is a medical condition and not feel entitled to someone else's baby.
It's a short step from promoting adoption to encouraging vulnerable young women into surrendering. Keeping families together should be promoted for the sake of the child and the mother
