[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 47 (Monday, November 24, 1997)]
[Pages 1863-1864]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997

November 19, 1997

    Thank you, Sue Ann. Thank you, Aaron. And I want to thank the Badeau 
family for showing up. I think it's fair to say it was a greater effort 
for them than for anyone else here. [Laughter] I appreciate the rest of 
your presence. It was easier for me than anybody; I just had to come 
downstairs. [Laughter] But I'm grateful that they're here.
    Secretary Shalala, I thank you and your staff for your remarkable 
work on this. And I thank the members of the White House staff, all the 
Members of Congress who are present here. And especially I thank 
Senators Rockefeller and Chafee and Congressman Camp and Kennelly for 
their work and for what they said here.
    Congratulations to the Adoption 2002 Excellence Award winners. I 
thank all the advocates who are here. And I say a special word of 
thanks, along with all the others who have said it, to the First Lady, 
who has been passionately committed to this issue for at least 25 years 
now that I know. Thank you, Govenor Romer, for coming. And thank you, 
Dave Thomas, for what you've done.
    Again let me say to all the Members of Congress who are here, 
Republicans and Democrats alike, I am very grateful for what you've 
done. This, after all is what we got in public life for, isn't it? 
[Applause]
    Before I make my brief remarks, if you'll forgive me and understand, 
I have to make one public statement today about the situation in Iraq.
    As I have said before, I prefer to resolve this situation 
peacefully, with our friends and allies, and I am working hard to do 
just that. But I want to be clear again about the necessary objective of 
any diplomacy now underway. Iraq must comply with the unanimous will of 
the international community and let the weapons inspectors resume their 
work to prevent Iraq from developing an arsenal of nuclear, chemical, 
and biological weapons. The inspectors must be able to do so without 
interference. That's our top line; that's our bottom line. I want to 
achieve it diplomatically. But we're taking every step to make sure we 
are prepared to pursue whatever options are necessary.
    I do not want these children we are trying to put in stable homes to 
grow up into a world where they are threatened by terrorists with 
biological and chemical weapons. It is not right.
    It's hard to believe now, but it was just a little less than a year 
ago when I directed our administration to develop a plan to double the 
number of children we move from foster care to adoptive homes by the 
year 2002. We know that foster parents provide safe and caring families 
for children. But the children should not be trapped in them forever, 
especially when there are open arms waiting to welcome them into 
permanent homes.

[[Page 1864]]

    The Adoption and Safe Families Act, which I am about to sign, is 
consistent with the work of the 2002 report and our goals. It 
fundamentally alters our Nation's approach to foster care and adoption. 
And fundamentally, it will improve the well-being of hundreds of 
thousands of our most vulnerable children. The new legislation makes it 
clear that children's health and safety are the paramount concerns of 
our public child welfare system. It makes it clear that good foster care 
provides important safe havens for our children, but it is by definition 
a temporary, not a permanent, setting.
    The new law will help us to speed children out of foster care into 
permanent families by setting meaningful time limits for child welfare 
decisions, by clarifying which family situations call for reasonable 
reunification efforts and which simply do not. It will provide States 
with financial incentives to increase the number of children adopted 
each year. It will ensure that adopted children with special needs never 
lose their health coverage--a big issue. Thank you, Congress, for doing 
that. It will reauthorize Federal funding for timely services to 
alleviate crisis before they become serious, that aid the reunification 
of families that help to meet post-adoption needs.
    With these measures we help families stay together where 
reunification is possible and help find safe homes for children much 
more quickly when it is not. We've come together in an extraordinary 
example of bipartisan cooperation to meet the urgent needs of children 
at risk. We put our differences aside and put our children first.
    This landmark legislation builds on other action taken in the last 
few years by Congress: the adoption tax credit I signed into law last 
August to make adopting children more affordable for families, 
especially those who adopt children with special needs; the Multiethnic 
Placement Act, enacted 2 years ago, ensuring that adoption is free from 
discrimination and delay, based on race, culture, or ethnicity; and the 
very first law I signed as President, the Family and Medical Leave Act 
of 1993, which enables parents to take time off to adopt a child without 
losing their jobs or their health insurance.
    We have put in place here the building blocks of giving all of our 
children what should be their fundamental right--a chance at a decent, 
safe home; an honorable, orderly, positive upbringing; a chance to live 
out their dreams and fulfill their God-given capacities.
    Now as we approach Thanksgiving, when families all across our 
country come together to give thanks for their blessings, I would like 
to encourage more families to consider opening their homes and their 
hearts to children who need loving homes. You may not want to go as far 
as the Badeaus have--[laughter]--but they are a shining example of how 
we grow--they are a shining example of how we grow when we give, how we 
can be blessed in return many times over. We thank them and all--all of 
the adoptive parents in the country.
    For those who are now or have been foster or adoptive parents, I'd 
like to say thank you on behalf of a grateful Nation, and again say at 
Thanksgiving, let us thank God for our blessings and resolve to give 
more of our children the blessings they deserve.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 1:53 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Sue Ann Badeau and her adopted 
son, Aaron; Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado; Dave Thomas, founder and senior 
chairman of the board of directors, Wendy's International, Inc. H.R. 
867, approved November 19, was assigned Public Law No. 105-89.