Lawyers, O.C. Couples Resist Bill to Tighten Adoption Law

A bill revamping independent adoptions in California has been tacked on to the state budget, sparking a last-minute attack by adoption attorneys and raising fears among some couples in the midst of adopting that their new families may be jeopardized.

One key element in the bill would require adopting parents to pay for an investigation--known as a home study--by a licensed private adoption agency before the child is placed. Currently, home studies are performed by the state Department of Social Services after placement.

“If it is passed tomorrow and we don’t have a home study done before the baby gets here, where does the baby go? To a foster home? Home with the birth mother? What happens?” asked Kathy Morgan of Huntington Beach. Morgan and her husband, Cliff, are in the midst of adopting their second child, due to be born next month.

“We’re stuck in the middle of this,” she said. “And we’re not the only couple in this position.”

State officials say fears of couples such as the Morgans are unfounded and that transition clauses will be written in to protect couples caught between the two laws. Jim Brown, head of the adoption unit of the state Department of Social Services, said that a “small number of people will get caught between the two pieces of law.”

“But we’re going to do everything we can” to provide transition policies that protect them, he said.

The issue is one of many that surround the bill, which Brown said has elicited some of the most intense controversy seen in recent years. “This bill has brought out more correspondence written with sentences in capital letters, italics and exclamation points than any other in the last few years,” he said.

Opponents claim it would end independent adoptions in the state, while supporters say it would curb a “baby market” for adoptions.

“Children and money don’t mix very well,” said Kate Burke, president of the 45,000-member American Adoption Congress, a grass-roots group of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, therapists and attorneys, which sponsored the bill. “This will balance everything in the process by involving licensed agencies and attorneys. It’s a watchdog situation. If the agency does anything inappropriate, the attorneys will scream. And vice versa. It’s a nice balance in public policy.”

During the past few decades, independent adoption, in which attorneys commonly play matchmaker between adopting parents and birth mothers, has become the most popular form of adoption in California, according to Santa Ana attorney Randall Hicks, author of the self-published “Adopting in California.”

“People were fed up with bureaucratic adoption. Now eight out of 10 newborn adoptions are done through independent adoption,” Hicks said.

In 1991, there were 2,716 independent adoptions statewide, most of which cost adoptive couples $8,000-$20,000, according to the state.

Adoptive parents say it is the easiest way to find healthy infants, and the parents’ age may not be a factor as it is in public agency or some international adoptions.

The bill, SB1148, was introduced two years ago by state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) as a result of three Orange County cases of do-it-yourself adoptions, where adoptive children were placed with families, then given back by the courts to birth parents. In one disputed case, the baby was 18 months old when he was taken away from the adoptive couple and placed with his birth parents.

The new law would require that birth mothers be offered psychological and legal counseling. It would also allow permanent placement at 10 days but set a 90-day cap on the period in which the birth mother may change her mind.

“What this does for the first time is two really important things,” Brown said. “It makes sure parties to independent adoption really know exactly what they’re getting into, and it makes predictable certain things in adoption like the time and having all your rights protected in the process. The overarching advantage is it also assures for the first time the adoptive families will be screened prior to having the child placed with them.”

Under the new system, the birth mothers would have to choose parents for their child from a pool of pre-screened couples.

Last year, 3% to 14% of adopting couples were either denied or withdrew their applications after negative information about them surfaced from the home study, Brown said.

The bill became attached to the budget because it will provide “considerable” savings to the state by eliminating the costs associated with home studies, Brown said. It has already been approved by the state Senate and is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly Judiciary Committee Aug. 5.

Meanwhile, some attorneys have been urging adoptive couples to lobby against the bill. One letter sent to clients by Santa Barbara attorney Douglas Donnelly claimed the bill would “end independent adoptions in California.”

Diane Michelsen, president of the Academy of California Adoption Lawyers, which represents the majority of the 40 adoption lawyers in the state, said lawyers are concerned there has been no public hearings over the measure. “It’s hard to get the word out, and harder to find out what’s going on,” she said.

Michelsen sees no benefits to parents. Now, she said, “the birth mother is responsible for making it her choice and doing it with the least amount of government intervention. It’s private and confidential by nature and the government was only verifying she made a good placement.”

“By changing it, they’re taking away much of the birth mother’s rights,” she said. “You have an agency do mandatory advising. They meet with her at least two different times. Her choice is impacted by the fact she may not do it unless that couple is pre-certified. It’s no longer based on her choice, but on others saying it’s OK for them to be adoptive parents.”

Further, she claimed the overall price of adoption would rise by several thousand dollars, and that some couples who wanted to adopt would forgo it because the process would be too cumbersome.

Brown acknowledged the cost to couples would probably increase slightly. But he noted that most adopting couples are not poor. Twenty-one percent earned more than $100,000 last year, he said.

State officials said the new system would allow nonprofit private agencies, such as Children’s Home Society, a larger role and open up competition with attorneys. They expect more people will apply to open nonprofit private adoption agencies in the state.

Bridget Wikidal of San Juan Capistrano lost her adopted son to his birth parents after she had cared for him for 18 months.

In 1989, when the Department of Social Services was in the midst of layoffs and cutbacks, a home study was not done until the child was nearly six months old.

At that time, she and her husband, Andreas, learned the adoption would not be final until the parents had signed a consent form. By that time, the teen-age parents had married and decided they wanted their child back. After a court fight, the Wikidals lost their son.

“It was an unbelievable experience,” Bridget Wikidal said. “It’s hard. You bond with the child. This child is part of you. The child feels for you.”

“For the courts to look at you and say you’re not his parents any more, the whole thing was devastating,” she said.

Wikidal founded Families for Adoption Reform which she said received calls every week from people throughout the state who had lost children in adoption.

With the new laws, she said, she would have had her rights and responsibilities upfront. “Consent would have been signed one way or the other, 10 days or 90 days. Eric would never have suffered. We would have been in the driver’s seat.”

If the mother had changed her mind early on, Wikidal said, she would have asked her if she needed counseling. “You want someone who wants the child to be with you. No one wants to take a child when the birth parent doesn’t want it to be there,” she said.

“We just need to tighten up the process and make everyone upfront aware of their rights and responsibilities.”