Committee passes adoption legislation

By Associated Press

2/16/2009  / Tulsa World

OKLAHOMA CITY — Legislation that supporters say will make adoption expenses more reasonable and end the practice of baby selling in Oklahoma was passed by a legislative panel Monday.

Members of the House Human Services Committee voted unanimously to send the bill to the full House for debate and a vote after its author, Rep. Jason Nelson, said it would bring transparency to the adoption process and stop abuses.

"This hopefully will stop what I call the silent auction of children," said Nelson, R-Oklahoma City.

The legislation is a response to a May 2006 multicounty grand jury report that found state law does little to ensure that adoption expenses are "reasonable, necessary and directly related to the needs of the potential birth mother."

The grand jury found that families can face dramatically different expenses when going through the adoption process. The haphazard regulation of adoption expenses has actually created an atmosphere where some individuals effectively sold children, the grand jury said.

It said one woman had six children in six years and placed all of them up for adoption. In some cases, birth mothers are unaware of the financial gains reaped from adoptive parents by intermediaries.

Adoption costs in Oklahoma are in the top 10 percent or 15 percent in the nation, according to Oklahoma County Public Defender Bob Ravitz, whose office was named to monitor adoptions in the county following release of the grand jury report.

Ravitz said attorney fees in some adoptions in the state have exceeded $100,000.

The proposed legislation "will guarantee transparency in the adoption process. That to me will cut down costs," Ravitz said.

Among other things, the bill creates a disclosure statement where all fees, expenses and costs charged or expected to be charged for an adoption are declared. It will be filed separately from an adoption petition and will not identify the birth mother or adoptive parents.

It would also require that only one prospective adoptive family be billed for a birth mother's expenses and end the practice of billing expenses to multiple prospective parents at the same time.

Nelson has said that in some cases, adoption attorneys would use that practice and the unsuspecting "highest bidder" who paid the most was granted the child.

"It has the potential to cut out some fraud in the adoption process," Ravitz said.

Nelson said the bill will also end the practice of "district shopping" by some adoption attorneys who look for judges who will approve unreasonable and even illegal expenses.

The measure will limit counties where an adoption may legally take place to the county of residence of the child or the adoptive parents, as well as Tulsa and Oklahoma counties.