[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 25261-25262]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         NATIONAL ADOPTION DAY

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, while we are continuing to try to 
resolve our current situation, I will speak for a moment about 
something else today. Today is National Adoption Day. The Senator from 
Idaho and I spoke at some length yesterday in anticipation of today, so 
I will not go into too much detail, but I thought maybe some of my 
colleagues would be pleased because they worked so hard on this issue. 
It is an important issue. One out of six Americans has been touched by 
adoption.
  While we were working in Washington, in our capitals and cities all 
across America, over 4,000 children were adopted today. That those 
children found forever families and parents who have prayed and hoped 
for either their first child into their family or children added into 
their family through adoption was made possible today because our 
country honors this day as National Adoption Day.
  Both President Bush and President Clinton before him were wonderful 
advocates of promoting a better system of foster care and child care in 
our Nation for the children of America. We believe, as Members of the 
Senate, there is no such thing as unwanted children, just unfound 
families. Many of us do a lot of work in this area in terms of 
legislation to try to make our system work more effectively and 
efficiently so that all children can have the dream of a family, a 
mother, a father, at least one parent, to raise them, to bring them up.
  We think that governments do a lot of things well--I, at least, think 
governments do a lot of things well--but one thing it does not do well 
is raise children. Families raise children. That is where children 
belong, in families. When they are separated from their birth parents 
for one reason or another--and there are many: war, famine, disease, 
and sometimes having to be separated from parents because of gross 
abuse and neglect--our work is to get them reconnected as soon as 
possible to a relative, to a responsible, caring adult, to at least 
some family in the community right there where they are and, if not, 
somewhere in the world.
  I have a heartwarming and also heartrending story about a little boy 
from Louisiana. For the sake of time, I will quickly tell the story 
because it truly is touching.
  Eight years ago, a little boy was born at Tulane Hospital. I am not 
going to say his name for the record. That was the wonderful news about 
being born, but the sad news was he was born with AIDS. He was so sick, 
so fragile and frail that his birth mother basically abandoned him and 
no one stepped forward for him.
  The nurse that cared for him fell in love with him and basically took 
him home to her house. She and her husband raised, nurtured, and loved 
this little boy for many years. She tried

[[Page 25262]]

through our system to adopt this child for years. I am not exactly sure 
if I could explain to Members why this never took place when the child 
was 2 or 3 or 4 except for bureaucracy or that people did not care 
enough.
  Here is a little boy, dying of AIDS, wanting parents, a parent 
wanting this child, but the system did not work fast enough.
  The happy part of the story is one judge in my State, Judge Taylor, 
after this came to his attention, decided to take action, and action he 
took. He brought all the court, which is unheard of, all the clerks, 
all of the lawyers to the hospital room where this little 8-year-old 
boy was lying in a frail condition, and he brought the prospective 
parents to the hospital room and they conducted the adoption ceremony 
right there in the hospital room. This is the only time I have ever 
heard of this. Maybe it has happened before, but this happened in New 
Orleans, LA, just in the last year.
  He was so frail that his doctors insisted that the heart monitor be 
kept on the whole time that this was going on. When the judge said the 
words, this child is now adopted, his heart rate went up to normal for 
the first time in his life. The child could not speak, but the monitors 
said what the child was feeling when he was adopted because his last 
wish was that he would be adopted. Through the Make a Wish Foundation 
this all happened.
  So the child was adopted, and his now new parents stood by his 
bedside and hugged and cried. That is the happy part of this story. I 
do not know what kind of system was not working that would leave this 
little boy without these parents so long, but the happy news is he was 
adopted and they became his parents. The sad part of the story is that 
his little life did not go much further than that, and within basically 
a day of that ceremony, he passed on.
  The great thing that I want to say today about National Adoption Day 
is that this child did not die an orphan. He died as a son. For this 
child and for the parents who adopted him, it was a wonderful ending.
  So the work that we do in the Senate, whether it is on finance, tax, 
health care, or military, there is not too much work that we can do 
that is more important than connecting children to families, families 
who will love them, nurture them, and give them the best opportunity. 
We cannot promise our children rose gardens. We cannot protect them 
from harm or injury or disease, but we can give our children love for 
as long as we have them and, of course, they give us back so much more.
  In honor of National Adoption Day, I thank all of our great leaders 
in Louisiana that made this wonderful story happen, and I congratulate 
the judges on our bench in New Orleans, the social workers who were on 
the positive side of this story, the parents themselves, the medical 
staff at Tulane University, and my sister Madeleine, who is a wonderful 
judge, who shared this story with me.
  I ask unanimous consent that the article from the New York Times be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Nov. 18, 2004]

                Agencies Press Effort To Speed Adoptions

                          (By Kristen A. Lee)

       In 1998, Judge Michael Nash, the presiding judge of the 
     juvenile court in Los Angeles, had a disturbing realization: 
     Foster children were languishing too long in the system 
     before their adoptions were completed.
       So with the support of a team of lawyers working pro bono, 
     Judge Nash opened his court on a Saturday and completed 130 
     adoptions in one morning. Buoyed by that success, Los Angeles 
     courts have had about 20 more Saturday sessions, handling the 
     adoptions of 7,000 children.
       Under the leadership of the Alliance for Children's 
     Research, the program initiated by Judge Nash's court has 
     expanded into a national drive. On Saturday, the fifth annual 
     National Adoption Day, child welfare groups and family courts 
     across the country plan nearly 200 events and hope to 
     complete more than 3,000 adoptions.
       Nationwide, 129,000 foster children are waiting for 
     permanent homes, according to a study released yesterday by 
     the National Adoption Day Coalition, a group of child welfare 
     organizations and private companies. Inadequate communication 
     between state child welfare agencies and the courts, crowded 
     court dockets and heavy caseloads were the most significant 
     obstacles cited to placing children in permanent homes. And 
     states continue to report that finding adoptive parents is a 
     challenge--especially for older children and those with 
     special needs, like behavioral problems or disabilities.
       But the study also found that state child welfare agencies 
     and juvenile courts were taking innovative steps, as Judge 
     Nash did, to better serve children and families.
       The number of adoptions in the United States has increased 
     significantly in recent years. In 1998, 37,000 children were 
     adopted. In 2002, the number rose to 53,000.
       The analysis was conducted by the Urban Institute, a 
     nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization. 
     The data was culled from federally mandated reports.
       According to the study, the adoption process is complicated 
     by the constant coordination required between child welfare 
     agencies and family courts. Scheduling difficulties can slow 
     the process, as can differences in outlook between agencies 
     and the courts. The overwhelming majority of state agencies 
     reported such differences led to delays in terminating the 
     rights of birth parents.
       ``The courts may have one perspective and the agencies may 
     have another,'' said Rob Geen, director of the Child Welfare 
     Research Program at the Urban Institute. These disagreements, 
     he added, ``lead to breakdowns and delay the adoption of 
     children.''
       Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat who is co-
     chairwoman of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption 
     Institute, described the system as ``somewhat broken.'' 
     Federal financing for foster care should be funneled to the 
     states in a more focused way, she said, adding, ``The passion 
     is there, the people's support is there, but the system 
     itself needs a tremendous amount of shoring up.''
       Many states are already taking steps to address delays in 
     the adoption process by reorganizing staff, scheduling more 
     training and working better with the courts.
       Judge Nash credits the special Saturday sessions for 
     cutting the number of children under his court's jurisdiction 
     to 28,000, from 54,000 in 1998. ``We have to move faster in 
     taking care of those kids,'' he said.
       But Mr. Geen said that there can be good reasons for delay. 
     ``The system is set up to address the birth parents' 
     rights,'' Mr. Geen said. ``It's not just finding a car,'' he 
     said of adoption. ``There are reasons why the process should 
     take a considerable amount of time.''

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I understand we are in a period 
of morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.

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