[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 44 (Monday, November 4, 1996)]
[Pages 2230-2231]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6947--National Adoption Month, 1996

October 29, 1996

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    Thousands of American children have never known what it is like to 
belong to a family--to grow up with the comfort and security that most 
of us take for granted. They are children whose parents, for a variety 
of reasons, are unable or unwilling to care for them. Instead, these 
children often find themselves drifting from home to home in foster 
care. They live every day without mothers or fathers to guide them, 
nurture them, and tell them that they are special.
    Adoption is a commonsense solution that places children in permanent 
homes with parents who will offer them love and security. National 
Adoption Month is a time for all Americans to reflect on the rewards of 
joining children who need families with adults who seek the 
responsibilities and joys of parenthood. This month is an opportunity to 
celebrate family, especially families formed by adoptions.
    Our Nation has no greater responsibility than to ensure that every 
child has the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential. We 
can help meet that challenge by identifying a permanent, loving family 
for every child waiting in the foster care system.
    Among the approximately 86,000 children who will await adoption 
within the next few years are tens of thousands with special needs. Many 
of these, through no fault of their own, wait years for adoption. Yet 
when these children are accepted into loving family environments, they 
can bring the same joy, affection, and love to their adoptive families 
as other children bring.
    In recent years, we have made important strides in encouraging 
parents to adopt. I have signed legislation to help facilitate adoptions 
by prohibiting discrimination based on race or ethnicity in placement 
decisions, increasing the recruitment of adoptive parents, and providing 
a tax credit to families who adopt children.
    Much remains to be done, however. As a Nation, we must continue to 
work to remove obstacles to adoption, to recruit new adoptive families, 
to offer financial incentives for placements, and to provide support to 
parents adopting children with special needs. Nothing should stand in 
the way of providing every boy and girl in America the permanent, loving 
home each of them deserves. Children are, after all, our country's most 
precious resource and our most important responsibility.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 
1996 as National Adoption Month. I urge the people of the United States 
to observe this month with appropriate activities and programs and to 
participate in efforts to find permanent homes for waiting children.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth 
day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-six, 
and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred 
and twenty-first.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 11:52 a.m., October 30, 
1996]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on October 
31.

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