I have blogged in the past that there are so many laws we ought to just ignore them. Could it be that that is, in fact, what we are doing?
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The Problem...
Ø 437,000 children are in foster care nationwide.
Ø In 1996 President Clinton issued a directive to the Department of Health and Human Services to find ways of escaping the foster-care “trap” that put children in “limbo” without permanent homes.
Ø In other words the children go into foster care and never come out.
Ø Congress responded to President Clinton by enacting the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (Congress sure knows how to come up with names to convince us that it is fixing things).
Ø This law mandated, if a child has been in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months, the state must move to terminate parental rights.
Ø The law directed states to undertake “reasonable efforts” to help parents regain custody, but not in cases of abandonment, torture, chronic abuse or sexual abuse.
There’s that word “reasonable” again. When “reasonable” is in a law, lawyers salivate because they know they are going to spend decades arguing (and getting paid handsomely) about what is “reasonable”.
Ø Child-welfare agencies routinely disregard President Clinton’s directive (law).
Ø Foster parents say these family-court cases drag on for three years or more.
Ø Sometimes parental rights have already been terminated for the children’s siblings because of severe neglect or chronic abuse but caseworkers and family-court judges are all too willing to give parents one more chance for the siblings still in foster care.
Ø Thus children, including infants and toddlers, spend years bouncing from one home to another without forming the attachments they need for normal intellectual, social and emotional development.
The law contains detailed specific monetary penalties for violations but the penalties are not enforced.
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The federal government could also help foster children find permanent homes by passing laws to...
Ø Lower barriers to adopting children across state lines.
Ø Prohibit discrimination against religious organizations.
That’s it! That’s what Congress ought to do! It ought to pass more laws!
After all, these laws which we are currently ignoring are a quarter of a century old. We need new laws passed so we can get busy ignoring them too.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
