Bastard Nation Helps Protect the Rights of Intercountry Adoptees

Bastard Nation is pleased to announce that the United States Senate enacted the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 and ratified the Hague Convention in Respect of Intercountry Adoption on Wednesday, September 20, 2000, the last hurdle to be crossed before going to the President for signature into law. The Hague Convention is an international treaty that establishes a global regulatory framework for what has been, up until now, the wild-wild-world of intercountry adoptions. The Act empowers the U.S. government to participate in this regulatory framework and provides specific protections for intercountry adoptees. For the first time ever, intercountry adoptions will be under direct government regulatory control. In 1999, nearly 20,000 children were adopted internationally by American citizens.

A Bastard Nation legislative team has been working since the summer of 1999 to ensure that the rights of intercountry adoptees are upheld and respected by the U.S. government. We were successful. Specifically, as enacted, the Act requires that the U.S. government preserve the adoption records of intercountry adoptees, and it also provides that such federally-controlled records (maintained by the Department of State) will remain accessible to adult adoptees pursuant to current law. Individual states remain free to design their own policies regarding records under their control.

While these adoptee rights provisions could have gone further, they are a tremendous improvement over drafts of the legislation prepared before our involvement. These earlier drafts contained provisions that would have permanently sealed federal records as well as required the states to do likewise to records under their control. All future intercountry adoptions, and possibly even adoptions that have already taken place, would have been affected. This would have been an unconscionable violation of adoptee human rights, as well as a devastating blow to open records efforts everywhere.

Bastard Nation, along with the American Adoption Congress and AdoptAmerica Advocates, noticed these problems upon review of the legislation when it became available in July of last year, even while powerful adoption agencies, trade lobbies and mainstream child welfare groups were publicly denying that such problems existed. These groups tried to see to it that adoptee and birthparent views were left out of legislative hearings and debates. When we expressed our concerns, these same groups insisted that the anti-adoptee version must be passed at any cost, or the U.S. would never, they said, ratify the Hague Convention. They were wrong, and, along with our reform partners, we convinced the sponsors to change their language. Senator Jesse Helms personally delivered one of our statements to the Senate hearings, and Representative Bill Delahunt saw to it that his staff involved us in the re-drafting process.

Once we were satisfied with the legislation, Bastard Nation campaigned for passage of the Act through Congress -- an arduous process that had to overcome opposition from adoption trade groups, religious groups, self-proclaimed "adoption experts" and legislators concerned about the implications for immigration policy. We worked in close collaboration with other adoption reform organizations from around the country and abroad to achieve our objectives. By combining efforts with the American Adoption Congress, AdoptAmerica Advocates, child welfare organizations, adoptive parent groups and even progressive adoption agencies, we were able to achieve a critical degree of visibility and legislative effectiveness on Capitol Hill -- a first for Bastard Nation and, in many ways, for the adoption reform community.

Albert Wei, Special Advisor to Bastard Nation's Executive Committee, worked in close collaboration with Fred Greenman, the American Adoption Congress's legislative counsel and now a Bastard Nation member, and Maureen Hogan of AdoptAmerica Advocates throughout the lobbying process.The legislation would not have been possible without the bi-partisan efforts of federal legislators and their staffs, including, but not limited to, Sens. Jesse Helms (R-NC) [and his aide, Michele DeKonty], Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) [and her aide, Kathleen Strottman], and Reps. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), Sam Gejdenson (D-CT), Bill Delahunt (D-MA) [and his legislative director, Mark Agrast], Dave Camp (R-MI), Kristen Gilley, and David Abramowitz.