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Bill to Revise Adoption Law Moves to Assembly Panel : Children: Private agencies would take over much of the state’s role. Critics say the drastic change could squeeze out independent transactions, which account for more than 75% of placements.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

California’s method of overseeing independent adoptions--those handled by lawyers or doctors instead of adoption agencies--would be changed drastically by legislation that has passed the state Senate and will be considered by the Assembly Judiciary Committee today.

The bill, authored by Sen. Marion Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) would eliminate most state supervision of independent adoptions, which account for 75% to 80% of all infant adoptions in the state, and place the responsibility largely in the hands of private adoption agencies.

Typically, independent adoptions are arranged by lawyers who are contacted by pregnant women who want to place their children in suitable homes. Last year, there were about 2,600 such adoptions in California, while only 500 to 600 babies were placed by adoption agencies, state adoption officials said.

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The Bergeson measure would save the state about $1.9 million a year, so it appeals to legislators and to the Wilson Administration, which is looking for ways to make up a 1992-93 budget gap of almost $11 billion.

The legislation is generally supported by the private adoption agencies and opposed by lawyers who handle independent adoptions.

The bill requires that counseling be offered to natural mothers (or to both parents, if the father is involved in the decision) before a baby is placed for adoption.

“There’s a tremendous amount of anger on the part of some birth mothers 20 or 30 years later,” said Kate Burke, president of the American Adoption Congress, which supports the legislation. “Many say they didn’t know what they were doing, they didn’t know what the options were” when they agreed to place their children for adoption.

The bill also allows the natural mother only 90 days to change her mind about the placement. Currently, the mother signs a consent form within 45 days after the baby is placed but can go to court to try to get the baby back at anytime before a final adoption decree is issued.

This section is good news to adoptive families whose lives have been disrupted when mothers belatedly seek custody of their children.

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However, Philip Adams, a San Francisco attorney who has handled more than 4,000 independent adoptions during his 41-year practice, said natural mothers rarely go to court after signing the consent forms and even more rarely succeed in getting a favorable court order.

The legislation calls for investigations of prospective adoptive families to be carried out before infants are placed, instead of afterward, as is now the case.

Under the current system, adoption arrangements can be made by the natural mother and the adoptive parents and the baby can be in its new home for a month before the state Department of Social Services is informed. The department has 45 days to complete a study of the adopting family’s suitability.

Jim Brown, chief of the department’s adoptions branch, said 3.5% to 5% of adoptive homes are found to be unsuitable. In some additional cases, parents withdraw their petitions to avoid the home inspection.

The current system works satisfactorily most of the time, Brown said, but “on the margins there are adoptions that blow up, with bad results for the adults or the child or both.”

There are enough such cases, he said, to merit changing the system so that family and home inspections are conducted before infants are placed, not after.

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Even opponents of Bergeson’s bill do not object to pre-placement counseling or family evaluations.

But they dislike and distrust the provisions that would shift these responsibilities from the state to private adoption agencies, which traditionally have been hostile to the independent adoption process.

Independent adoptions are supervised by the state in 54 counties, by county agencies in Los Angeles and three other counties. The Bergeson bill would remove all of these from the business of overseeing private adoptions, turning over responsibility in all licensed private agencies.

Many private adoption agencies currently have religious ties, although the largest private agency in Los Angeles County--Childrens Home Society--is nondenominational.

The bill says that the private agencies determine what is a “safe and suitable home” for a child, but Lil Snee, president of the South Bay Adoption Support Group, in San Jose, asked: “What does ‘suitable’ mean? This language would allow an adoption agency to interfere with an adoption plan made by a birth mother and an adoptive family, based on what they believe to be best for the child.”

Snee also said the cost of an independent adoption would rise sharply because adopting families would have to pay adoption agency fees of $10,000 or more plus the full cost of a family and home evaluation--$3,000 or more--instead of the $500 fee the state now charges.

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Gail Steinberg, who works on placement of minority children in the San Francisco Bay Area, said the extra fees would mean “people will be less likely to adopt the children we are trying to place.”

However, independent adoptions already are quite expensive--”seldom less than $12,000,” said David Leavitt, a Beverly Hills attorney who specializes in adoption law.

This figure includes the mother’s medical expenses, her financial support during final stages of pregnancy and legal fees of $3,500 to $4,500.

Leavitt said the bill is “basically flawed” because it places supervision of independent adoptions in the hands of agencies “that have sought the end of independent adoptions for 50 years.”

Leavitt suggested that agencies might steal cases, urging birth mothers to place their babies with one of the agency’s client families instead of the family that had arranged the independent placement.

Chris Kahn, an aide to Bergeson, conceded this might be a problem but predicted that the legislation would lead to creation of a “whole new group of agencies that are different from the agencies that exist now.”

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These new agencies could be any group of social workers with adoption experience who decide to join together to do the pre-placement counseling and home and family evaluations that would be required.

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