Watson Applauds House Approval of Adoption Reforms
HARRISBURG – Legislation that seeks to make the process easier for would-be parents to adopt children in Pennsylvania passed the state House today, said Rep. Kathy Watson (R-Bucks/144th), author of one of the measures and chairman of the House Children and Youth Committee.
“Pennsylvania is known throughout the country as having some of the most unfriendly adoption laws in the nation – and in some parts of the world,” said Watson, who was both adopted as a young child and is the mother of an adopted son. “Thousands of children here in Pennsylvania deserve loving families, but our laws prevent them from finding their forever homes. That’s why it’s imperative to update our laws and allow adoptive parents to bring these children home.”
Watson’s
House Bill 1524 would help to make the process easier for birth parents by ensuring they have access to adoption-related counseling services, which would be available either while considering placing the child for adoption or after parental rights have been relinquished.
“Putting a child up for adoption is never an easy decision,” Watson said. “The parents who choose to do so are brave individuals who mainly want to ensure their child has a better life. Resources are available at the county level to provide counseling, and this legislation would help make sure that’s available by using existing funds designed for that purpose.”
With Watson’s proposal, five pieces of an overall nine-bill legislative package to reform the adoption process in Pennsylvania have passed the House in the past two weeks. Those bills include measures to streamline the process, such as eliminating the requirement of holding a hearing to confirm a consent to an adoption when the birth parent or parents of the child being placed for adoption have executed valid consents to an adoption. Another bill would amend the definition of “intermediary” in adoption law to include a licensed attorney or social worker who is acting in that capacity.
A cornerstone piece of the package would shorten the period in which a birth mother, birth father or putative father can revoke his or her consent to an adoption from 30 days to 14 days. Watson emphasized that this window starts after consent for adoption has been given, not from the time the child is born.
And to help ensure that a birth parent has resources available during her pregnancy,
House Bill 1529 would add reasonable expenses incurred by a birth mother of a child being placed for adoption to the list of expenses currently permitted to be reimbursed in an adoption process and paid by the adoptive parents. The list would be overseen by the court and is designed to help a birth mother pay for such items as bus fare for a well-baby visit or pre-natal vitamins.
That legislation also would eliminate the requirement of an intermediary report, which can be easily added or already part of the adoption petition.
“These measures are designed to streamline the adoption process so that would-be adoptive parents in Pennsylvania will not have to go far in finding a child to expand their family,” Watson added.
All of these proposals were examined at hearings of the House Children and Youth Committee earlier this spring.
Representative Kathy Watson
144th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Jennifer Keaton
717.705.2094
jkeaton@pahousegop.com
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