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The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), enacted in November 1997, represents a shift in federal child welfare philosophy from an emphasis on reunification of children in foster care with their biological families toward an emphasis on adoption. L'adoption et la Loi sur la salubrité Familles (ASFA), promulguée en Novembre 1997, représente un changement dans la philosophie de protection de l'enfance du gouvernement fédéral de mettre l'accent sur le regroupement des enfants en famille d'accueil avec leur famille biologique vers un accent sur l'adoption. The promotion of ASFA and the critique of family preservation policy is framed as a defense of children's rights. La promotion de l'ASFA et la critique de la politique de préservation de la famille est présentée comme une défense des droits des enfants. The debate surrounding the law pitted children's interests against the state's interest in keeping families together, and children's right to be safe against parents' right to custody of their children. Le débat entourant la loi dénoyautées intérêts des enfants contre les intérêts de l'Etat dans les familles restent unies et le droit des enfants d'être en sécurité contre le droit des parents à la garde de leurs enfants. This paper uses the perceived antagonism between children's rights and family preservation policies to explore the politics of children's rights. Ce document utilise l'antagonisme apparent entre les droits des enfants et des politiques préservation de la famille à explorer la politique des droits des enfants. I argue that there are both pragmatic and philosophical flaws in ASFA's emphasis on adoption that undermine the claim that the law advances children's rights. Je soutiens qu'il ya des failles à la fois pragmatique et philosophique dans l'accent sur l'adoption de l'ASFA qui minent l'affirmation que la loi fait progresser les droits des enfants. America's foster care problem stems more from the removal of too many children from their homes than from the failure to place enough children in adoptive homes. Problème de l'Amérique des familles d'accueil procède davantage de l'enlèvement de trop nombreux enfants de leurs maisons que de l'omission de mettre assez d'enfants dans des foyers adoptifs. I also argue that the passage of ASFA reflected contemporary developments in race and class politics, particularly welfare reform and changes in federal policy on transracial adoption. Je soutiens aussi que le passage de l'ASFA reflété l'évolution contemporaine de la politique race et de classe, notamment la réforme du bien-être et des changements dans la politique fédérale sur l'adoption interraciale. A grossly disproportionate number of children placed in substitute care are poor and Black. Un disproportionnée du nombre d'enfants placés dans des soins de substitution sont pauvres et noirs. I conclude by making a case for injecting a deliberate attention to social justice in discussions about children's rights. Je terminerai en faisant un cas d'injection d'une attention délibérée à la justice sociale dans les discussions sur les droits des enfants.

DRAFT PROJET
Is There Justice in Children's Rights?: Est-il la justice dans les droits des enfants?:
The Critique of Federal Family Preservation Policy La Critique de la politique familiale fédérale Préservation

Dorothy E. Roberts ¹ Dorothy E. Roberts ¹

Introduction: Pitting Children's Rights against Family Preservation Introduction: Les droits des enfants contre les piqûres préservation de la famille

In November 1997, President Clinton signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (" ASFA") ² aimed at doubling the number of children adopted annually by 2002. ³ The act represents a dramatic shift in federal child welfare philosophy from an emphasis on the reunification of children in foster care with their biological families toward the adoption of these children into new families. En Novembre 1997, le Président Clinton a signé l'adoption et la Loi sur la salubrité Familles («ASFA") ² visant à doubler le nombre d'enfants adoptés chaque année d'ici 2002. ³ La loi représente un changement radical dans la philosophie de protection de l'enfance du gouvernement fédéral de mettre l'accent sur ​​la réunification de les enfants en famille d'accueil avec leur famille biologique vers l'adoption de ces enfants dans de nouvelles familles. Its predecessor, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, ⁴ encourages states to develop preventive and reunification programs instead of costly and disruptive out-of-home placements that had dominated child welfare practice. ⁵ The new law amends the 1980 act to direct state authorities to make the health and safety of children in foster care their top priority. ⁶ Son prédécesseur, l'Assistance adoption et la Child Welfare Act de 1980, ⁴ encourage les États à élaborer des programmes de prévention et de la réunification au lieu du coûteux et perturbateurs hors de la maison des placements qui avait dominé la pratique de l'enfance. ⁵ La nouvelle loi modifie la Loi de 1980 pour diriger autorités étatiques à faire de la santé et la sécurité des enfants en famille d'accueil leur priorité. ⁶

Support for ASFA was generated largely through tragic stories of children who were killed after caseworkers returned them to blatantly dangerous parents. Prise en charge de l'ASFA a été générée essentiellement par le biais des histoires tragiques d'enfants qui ont été tués après les travailleurs sociaux entre eux sont retournés aux parents flagrante dangereuse. But ASFA's reform of federal child welfare policy goes beyond mandating steps to ensure the safety of children who have been removed from violent homes. Mais la réforme de la politique de l'ASFA protection de l'enfance du gouvernement fédéral va au-delà imposant des mesures pour garantir la sécurité des enfants qui ont été retirés de foyers violents. The act and the rhetoric surrounding it weaken federal commitment to family preservation and establish a preference for adoption as the means of reducing the exploding foster care population. La loi et la rhétorique entourant l'affaiblir engagement fédéral à la préservation de la famille et d'établir une préférence pour l'adoption en tant que moyen de réduire la population des soins de l'explosion d'accueil. The law's congressional sponsors declared that the legislation "is putting children on the fast track from foster care to safe and loving and permanent homes," referring to adoptive families. ⁷ The preference for adoption is implemented through swifter timetables for terminating the rights of biological parents to "free" children for adoption ⁸ and the provision of technical assistance to states to facilitate adoptions. ⁹ The act also gives states financial incentives to move more children into adoptive homes. ¹⁰ Although ASFA retains the requirement that states make reasonable efforts to reunify children with their families, it encourages concurrent efforts to place these children with adoptive parents. ¹¹ In case of a conflict between reunification and permanency efforts, the permanency plan prevails. ¹² Commanditaires du Congrès de la loi a déclaré que la législation "est de mettre les enfants sur la voie rapide du foyer d'accueil à la sécurité des foyers et aimante et permanente", se référant à des familles adoptives. ⁷ La préférence pour l'adoption est mis en œuvre grâce à des horaires plus rapide pour mettre fin aux droits des parents biologiques «libérer» les enfants pour adoption ⁸ et la fourniture d'une assistance technique aux États pour faciliter les adoptions. ⁹ La loi donne aussi aux États des incitations financières pour passer plus d'enfants dans des foyers adoptifs. ¹⁰ Bien que l'ASFA conserve l'exigence que les États font des efforts raisonnables pour réunir les enfants avec leurs familles, il encourage les efforts simultanés de placer ces enfants avec leurs parents adoptifs. ¹¹ En cas de conflit entre la réunification et les efforts de la permanence, le plan de la permanence qui prévaut. ¹²

The law's supporters argue that these provisions promote adoptions for the 100,000 children in foster care who cannot return safely to their birth families. ¹³ Of course, the state should promote adoptions of children who have been abandoned by their parents or who have little chance of being reunited with their families. Partisans de la loi font valoir que ces dispositions favorisent les adoptions pour les 100.000 enfants en famille d'accueil qui ne peuvent retourner en toute sécurité à leurs familles de naissance. ¹³ Bien sûr, l'Etat doit promouvoir les adoptions d'enfants qui ont été abandonnés par leurs parents ou qui ont peu de chance d'être réunis avec leurs familles. The act's impact, however, may be to permanently separate children from families that might have been preserved with adequate state resources or alternative custody arrangements. ¹⁴ Family preservation efforts often fail because they are inadequate: children are returned to troubled homes without assessing the parents' problems or providing the level or continuity of services required to solve them. ¹⁵ Having never delivered on its promise to support poor families, Congress is now using the failure of family preservation programs to justify taking more poor children from their parents. L'impact de la Loi, cependant, peut être définitivement séparer les enfants de familles qui ont pu être préservés avec des ressources adéquate de l'État ou des modalités de garde alternative. ¹⁴ efforts de préservation de la famille échouent souvent parce qu'elles sont inadéquates: les enfants sont retournés à foyers en difficulté sans en évaluer la volonté des parents problèmes ou de fournir le niveau ou la continuité des services requis pour les résoudre. ¹⁵ N'ayant jamais tenu sa promesse de soutenir les familles pauvres, le Congrès est maintenant en utilisant l'échec des programmes de préservation familiale pour justifier la prise de plusieurs enfants pauvres de leurs parents. Moreover, states are unlikely to find adoptive homes for most of these children. Par ailleurs, les Etats sont peu susceptibles de trouver des foyers d'adoption pour la plupart de ces enfants. The act also sends an alarming message: we should be quicker to abandon the poor, Black, and struggling families whose children are typically put in foster care while encouraging more privileged couples to adopt them. L'acte envoie également un message alarmant: nous devrions être plus rapides à abandonner les familles pauvres, noires, et luttant dont les enfants sont généralement mis en famille d'accueil, tout en encourageant les couples les plus privilégiés de les adopter.

The critique of federal family preservation policy is framed as a defense of children's rights. La critique de la politique familiale du gouvernement fédéral de préservation est encadrée comme une défense des droits des enfants. As Representative Pryce of Ohio argued before Congress on the bill's behalf, "we will elevate children's rights so that a child's health and safety will be of paramount concern under the law.... Let us do it for the children." ¹⁶ The Washington Post praised the law for putting "a new and welcome emphasis on the children." ¹⁷ And a Milwaukee columnist declared that ASFA was "to the abused and neglected children in our nation's foster care system what the Voting Rights Act was to black Americans in 1965. ¹⁸ En tant que Représentant de l'Ohio Pryce a soutenu devant le Congrès au nom du projet de loi, "nous allons élever les droits des enfants afin que la santé de l'enfant et la sécurité sera une préoccupation primordiale vertu de la loi .... Laissez-nous faire pour les enfants." ¹⁶ Le Washington Message salué la loi pour mettre "un accent nouveau et bienvenue sur les enfants." ¹⁷ et un chroniqueur de Milwaukee a déclaré que l'ASFA a été "pour les enfants maltraités et négligés dans le système de notre nation une famille d'accueil ce que le Voting Rights Act a été pour les Américains noirs en 1965 . ¹⁸

The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives , by prominent family violence scholar Richard Gelles, galvanized support for ASFA on similar grounds. ¹⁹ The Book of David reports the startling events that surrounded the suffocation of a little boy by his mother after he was returned to their abusive home. Le livre de David: Comment la préservation des familles peut coûter des vies des enfants, par d'éminents de la violence familiale spécialiste Gelles Richard, galvanisé par l'ASFA pour des motifs similaires. ¹⁹ Le livre de David rapporte les événements surprenants qui ont entouré l'étouffement d'un petit garçon par sa mère après il a été renvoyé à leur foyer violent. Gelles attributes this tragic lapse in judgment to the priority policymakers placed on families, rather than on children. Gelles attributs ce laps tragique en jugement pour les décideurs priorité accordée à des familles, plutôt que sur les enfants.

According to Gelles, family preservation policies encouraged caseworkers to interpret the mandate to use "reasonable efforts" to reunify foster children with their families as a license to risk children's safety. ²⁰ He argues that "the basic flaw of the child protection system is that is has two inherently contradictory goals: protecting children and preserving families." ²¹ Gelles therefore advocates reinventing the child welfare system "so that it places children first." ²² Selon Gelles, les politiques de préservation famille l'a encouragé les travailleurs sociaux pour interpréter le mandat d'utiliser des «efforts raisonnables» pour réunir les enfants d'accueil avec leurs familles comme un permis de risque pour la sécurité des enfants. ²⁰ Il soutient que «le défaut fondamental du système de protection de l'enfance qui est a deux objectifs intrinsèquement contradictoires:. familles de protéger les enfants et la préservation de " ²¹ Gelles préconise donc réinventer le système de protection de l'enfance »afin qu'il place les enfants d'abord». ²²

The debate over family preservation policies, thus, pits children's interests against the state's interest in keeping families together. Le débat sur les politiques de préservation de la famille, donc, les fosses les intérêts des enfants contre les intérêts de l'Etat dans les familles restent unies. ASFA supporters placed children's right to be safe at odds with parents' right to custody of their children. ²³ It is understandable that in Disposable Children Renny Golden entitled the chapter on this topic "Family Preservation Versus Children's Rights." ²⁴ A number of scholars and activists, many of whom are children's advocates themselves, have refuted this opposition of children's rights and family rights. ²⁵ As Bruce Boyer, the supervising attorney for the Children and Family Justice Center of Northwestern Law School, puts it, "[ i] n family preservation, to my mind, there's a commonality of interests." ²⁶ Typically, furthering a family's interests will also benefit the children who belong to the family. Partisans ASFA placé le droit des enfants d'être en sécurité en contradiction avec le droit des parents à la garde de leurs enfants. ²³ Il est compréhensible que les enfants jetables Renny Or intitulé le chapitre sur ce sujet "préservation de la famille contre les droits des enfants." ²⁴ Un certain nombre de savants et militants, dont beaucoup sont des défenseurs des enfants eux-mêmes, ont réfuté cette opposition des droits des enfants et des droits de la famille. ²⁵ Comme Bruce Boyer, l'avocat superviseur de la Children and Family Justice Center de l'école de Northwestern Law, il dit, «[i] n la famille la préservation, à mon avis, il ya une communauté d'intérêts. " ²⁶ Typiquement, faire avancer les intérêts d'une famille bénéficieront également les enfants qui appartiennent à la famille. Children, moreover, have an interest in maintaining the bond with their parents and other family members and are terribly injured when this bond is unnecessarily disrupted. ²⁷ Les enfants, par ailleurs, avoir un intérêt à maintenir le lien avec leurs parents et autres membres de famille et sont terriblement blessés lorsque ce lien est inutilement perturbée. ²⁷

When the state seeks to protect children, it takes on the exquisitely difficult task of deciding when intervention is reasonably necessary to the physical or emotional well-being of a child and when it is destructive, both of the bonds upon which the child depends for healthy nurturance and of the child's right to grow in a community that is open, flexible, and self-defining, rather than state-controlled. ²⁸ Lorsque l'Etat cherche à protéger les enfants, il prend la tâche extraordinairement difficile de décider quand une intervention est raisonnablement nécessaire à la physique ou bien-être émotionnel d'un enfant et quand elle est destructrice, tant des obligations sur lesquelles l'enfant dépend pour la santé nurturance et du droit de l'enfant à grandir dans une communauté qui est ouverte, flexible et auto-définition, plutôt que contrôlé par l'Etat. ²⁸

The reason for limiting state intrusion in the home is not only a concern for parental privacy but also the recognition that children suffer when separated from their parents and community. La raison pour limiter intrusion de l'État dans la maison n'est pas seulement une préoccupation pour la vie privée des parents, mais aussi la reconnaissance que les enfants souffrent lorsqu'ils sont séparés de leurs parents et la collectivité. These divergent understandings of the relationship between children's interests and preserving families suggest, at least, that is no fixed meaning of children's rights in any particular contest involving children's welfare. Ces compréhensions divergentes de la relation entre les intérêts des enfants et des familles en préservant suggèrent, au moins, ce n'est pas de signification fixe des droits des enfants dans tout concours impliquant notamment la protection des enfants.

In this essay, I use the perceived antagonism between children's rights and family preservation policies to explore further the politics of children's rights. Dans cet essai, je me sers de l'antagonisme apparent entre les droits des enfants et des politiques préservation de la famille d'explorer davantage la politique des droits des enfants. The use of children's rights in the debate that led to ASFA demonstrates how easily this concept can obscure political struggles. L'utilisation des droits des enfants dans le débat qui a conduit à l'ASFA montre comment ce concept peut facilement occulter les luttes politiques.

Part II considers pragmatic and philosophical flaws in ASFA's emphasis on adoption that undermine the claim that the law advances children's rights. Partie II considère défauts pragmatique et philosophique dans l'accent sur ​​l'adoption de l'ASFA qui minent l'affirmation que les droits des avancées du droit des enfants.

Part III explores developments in race and class politics in America that influenced the shift in federal child welfare policy. Partie III examine les faits de course et la politique de classe en Amérique qui ont influencé le changement dans la politique fédérale protection de l'enfance. I contend that ASFA had as much to do with these political struggles as with concern for children's rights. Je soutiens que l'ASFA a autant à voir avec ces luttes politiques comme avec préoccupation pour les droits des enfants.

Finally, in Part IV I argue that it is critically important to inject into the development of children's rights a deliberate attention to social justice. Enfin, dans la partie IV Je soutiens qu'il est extrêmement important d'injecter dans le développement des droits des enfants une attention délibérée à la justice sociale.

II. Does ASFA Advance Children's Rights? II. t ASFA Advance droits des enfants?

A preliminary step in assessing ASFA as a children's rights measure is to determine whether or not it furthers children's interests. Une étape préliminaire dans l'évaluation de l'ASFA comme une mesure des droits des enfants est de déterminer si oui ou non elle favorise les intérêts des enfants. Certainly the clarification of the "reasonable efforts" requirement to ensure that children are not returned to violent homes protects children. Certes, la clarification des "efforts raisonnables" obligation de s'assurer que les enfants ne sont pas retournés aux foyers violents protège les enfants. ASFA amends the federal child welfare law to make children's health and safety "the paramount concern" and to exempt from family preservation requirements parents who commit specified violence crimes against their children, subject their children to aggravating circumstances such as torture, or have already had their parental rights involuntarily terminated. ²⁹ Most people would probably agree that children have an interest in, if not a right to, government protection from this sort of violence. ³⁰ ASFA modifie la loi fédérale pour enfants du bien-être faire de la santé des enfants et la sécurité "la préoccupation primordiale" et d'exempter des exigences de la préservation des parents de la famille qui commettent des crimes de violence spécifié par rapport à leurs enfants, sous réserve de leurs enfants à des circonstances aggravantes, comme la torture, ou ont déjà eu leur droits parentaux involontairement résilié. ²⁹ La plupart des gens conviendraient probablement que les enfants ont un intérêt, sinon un droit de la protection du gouvernement contre ce genre de violence. ³⁰

The child victims of severe abuse covered by these provisions, however, are only a minority of the children affected by the new law. Les enfants victimes d'abus graves couverts par ces dispositions, cependant, ne sont qu'une minorité des enfants touchés par la nouvelle loi. Most children in foster care were removed from their homes because of parental neglect related to poverty. La plupart des enfants en famille d'accueil ont été retirés de leur foyer en raison de la négligence parentale liées à la pauvreté. Their well being will be determined more by ASFA's other major policy initiative – the act's emphasis on termination of parental rights to free children for adoption. Leur bien-être sera déterminée plus par l'ASFA initiative politique d'autres grandes - l'accent sur l'acte de résiliation des droits parentaux aux enfants gratuitement pour adoption. The act attempts to place children on a "fast track" to adoption by imposing swifter timetables for severing children's ties with their parents and by allowing concurrent planning for adoption. La loi tente de placer les enfants sur une «voie rapide» à l'adoption, en imposant des horaires plus rapide pour rompre les liens des enfants avec leurs parents et en permettant la planification simultanée pour adoption. These deadlines have little to do with child abuse; they concern the length of time a child has spent in foster care. ³¹ This shift in the government's approach to the foster care problem has both pragmatic and philosophical flaws. ³² Ces délais ont peu à voir avec la maltraitance des enfants: ils concernent la durée du temps d'un enfant a passé en famille d'accueil. ³¹ Ce changement dans l'approche du gouvernement au problème des familles d'accueil a deux défauts pragmatiques et philosophiques. ³²

A. Pragmatic Problems A. Problèmes pragmatique

The policy of promoting adoption at the expense of terminating parental rights assumes that adoption will significantly reduce the large numbers of children in out-of-home placements. La politique de promotion de l'adoption au détriment de la résiliation des droits parentaux suppose que l'adoption permettra de réduire considérablement le nombre important d'enfants hors du domicile des stages. The key supporters of ASFA operated according to the premise that the foster care problem stems from barriers to adoption. Les principaux supporters de l'ASFA fonctionne selon le principe que le problème des familles d'accueil découle d'obstacles à l'adoption. They singled out for criticism family preservation policies that make it difficult to terminate parental rights. On y souligne la critique des politiques de préservation de famille qui font qu'il est difficile de mettre fin aux droits parentaux. They implied that if states removed this barriers — if courts terminated parental rights sooner — the foster care problem would dissipate and even disappear. Ils ont laissé entendre que si les États supprimé cette barrières - si les tribunaux résilié droits parentaux plus tôt - le problème des familles d'accueil se dissipe et même disparaître.

This is a false hope. Ceci est un faux espoir. There are not enough people wishing to adopt to absorb the high volume of children already pouring into foster care. Il n'ya pas assez de gens qui souhaitent adopter pour absorber le volume élevé d'enfants déjà verser dans une famille d'accueil. Data on the foster care system over the last twenty years show that the number of terminations of parental rights far outpaces the number of adoptions. Les données sur le système de placement familial au cours des vingt dernières années montrent que le nombre de cessations des droits parentaux dépasse largement le nombre d'adoptions. Martin Guggenheim's study of statistics gathered from Michigan and New York over the period from 1987 to 1993 showed a dramatic increase in the number of children who become "state wards" — children whose parents' rights have been terminated and are waiting in foster care to be adopted. ³³ Although the number of state wards adopted also increased, it lagged behind the number of children newly becoming state wards as a result of termination of their parents' rights. L'étude de Martin Guggenheim de statistiques recueillies auprès du Michigan et de New York au cours de la période de 1987 à 1993 a montré une augmentation spectaculaire du nombre d'enfants qui deviennent des «pupilles d'État» - les enfants dont les droits des parents ont été résiliés et qui attendent en famille d'accueil à adopté. ³³ Bien que le nombre de quartiers Etat a adopté également augmenté, il en retard sur le nombre d'enfants nouvellement devenant salles Etat à la suite de la résiliation des droits de leurs parents.

Both states, in short, experienced "a dramatic increase in the number of children who are freed for adoption but not adopted." Les deux états, en bref, a connu "une augmentation spectaculaire du nombre d'enfants qui sont libérés pour adoption mais pas adoptée." Indeed, in New York the number of unadopted state wards jumped 225 percent in four years, from 648 in 1987 to 2,383 in 1991. ³⁴ Guggenheim concludes: En effet, à New York le nombre de quartiers Etat non adoptés sauté 225 pour cent en quatre ans, passant de 648 en 1987 à 2383 en 1991. ³⁴ Guggenheim conclut:

Five years of aggressively terminating parents rights has produced a clear pattern: The number of children freed for adoption goes up every year; the number of children fails to keep pace with the number of adoption-eligible children; and the total number of orphaned children not adopted continues to increase fastest of all. ³⁵ Cinq années de terminaison agressivement les droits des parents a produit un schéma clair: Le nombre d'enfants libérés pour adoption augmente chaque année; le nombre d'enfants ne parvient pas à suivre le rythme avec le nombre d'adoption admissibles à des enfants, et le nombre total d'enfants orphelins ne adoptée continue à plus forte augmentation de tous. ³⁵

Thus, even before ASFA was passed, states were already excessively terminating parental rights. Ainsi, avant même l'ASFA a été adoptée, les États étaient déjà excessivement fin de droits parentaux. The accelerated deadlines for termination of parental rights will only increase the state ward population; the act's adoption incentives, on the other hand, even if they achieve congressional goals, will not produce enough new homes for all of these children. Les délais de résiliation accélérée des droits parentaux ne fera qu'augmenter la population Ward Etat; incitations adoption de cette loi, d'autre part, même si elles atteindre les objectifs du Congrès, ne sera pas produire suffisamment de nouvelles maisons pour tous ces enfants. The short fall is exacerbated by the fact that the children most likely affected by ASFA's expedited termination process are the very ones least likely to be adopted. La chute courte est exacerbée par le fait que les enfants les plus susceptibles d'être affectées par le processus accéléré de résiliation de l'ASFA sont ceux-là même moins de chances d'être adoptée. Black parents' rights are already terminated sooner than those of white parents, yet Black children are less likely to be adopted than white children. ³⁶ Les droits de parents noirs sont déjà terminée plus tôt que ceux de parents blancs, mais les enfants noirs sont moins susceptibles d'être adoptées que les enfants blancs. ³⁶

It is difficult to see how these children's interests are furthered by the extinction of their legal connection to their parents. Il est difficile de voir comment les intérêts de ces enfants sont favorisés par l'extinction de leur lien juridique avec leurs parents. "State governments appear to be destroying family ties of a large, and continually increasing number of children," Guggenheim charges, "with no concomitant benefit to children." ³⁷ Termination always disrupts the relationship between children and their parents while it may not result in a permanent placement. "Les gouvernements des États semblent détruire les liens familiaux d'un grand nombre, et sans cesse croissant d'enfants", les frais Guggenheim, «sans bénéfice concomitant aux enfants." ³⁷ Résiliation toujours perturbe la relation entre les enfants et leurs parents alors qu'il peut ne pas entraîner un placement permanent. This hardly enhances family stability for many foster children. Cela améliore la stabilité familiale peine pour de nombreux enfants adoptifs.

The act's focus on severing biological ties to make room for adoptive ones overlooks the diversity of parent-child relationships as well as alternatives to adoption. L'acte se concentrer sur la rupture des liens biologiques pour faire place aux parents adoptifs surplombe la diversité des relations parent-enfant ainsi que des alternatives à l'adoption. Before seeking termination of parental rights, agencies should consider the strength of the attachment between parent and child and the likelihood of adoption, both of which are probably related to the child's age. ³⁸ It usually makes more sense on both counts to terminate parental rights in the case of abandoned infants than in the case of adolescents or teens, especially those who have maintained contact with their parents. ³⁹ Avant de demander la résiliation de ses droits parentaux, les agences devraient considérer la force de l'attachement entre parent et enfant et de la probabilité d'adoption, qui tous deux sont probablement liés à l'âge de l'enfant. ³⁸ Il est généralement plus de sens sur les deux points de résilier leurs droits parentaux à le cas des enfants abandonnés que dans le cas des adolescents ou des adolescents, surtout ceux qui ont maintenu le contact avec leurs parents. ³⁹

There are also alternatives to adoption that could ensure stability while preserving the parent-child relationship. ⁴⁰ For example, children can often be safely placed in the long-term care of relatives or neighbors with visitation by their parents, leaving open the possibility that the parents regain custody if circumstances improve. ⁴¹ Il ya aussi des alternatives à l'adoption qui pourrait assurer la stabilité tout en préservant la relation parent-enfant. ⁴⁰ Par exemple, les enfants peuvent souvent être placés en sécurité dans les soins à long terme des parents ou des voisins avec des visites de leurs parents, en laissant ouverte la possibilité que le récupérer la garde des parents, si les circonstances l'améliorer. ⁴¹

In a 1994 survey of children in Illinois state custody who had been living with a relative for more than one year, 85 per cent of relatives reported that the best plan for the children was to remain with them until the children were grown. ⁴² Many of these relatives, however, shun adoption because it disrupts customary kinship norms and creates an adversarial relationship with the parents. ⁴³ For children living in such arrangements, expedited termination rules that disconnect them from their parents to make them available for formal adoptive placements make them worse off. Dans une enquête de 1994 sur les enfants en garde de l'Illinois qui avait été vivant avec un parent pour plus d'un an, 85 pour cent des parents ont indiqué que le meilleur plan pour les enfants était de rester avec eux jusqu'à ce que les enfants ont grandi. ⁴² Beaucoup de ces parents, toutefois, évite l'adoption car elle perturbe les normes coutumières de parenté et crée une relation contradictoire avec les parents. ⁴³ Pour les enfants vivant dans de tels arrangements, règles relatives au licenciement accéléré qui débranchez-les de leurs parents afin de les rendre disponibles pour des stages formels adoptifs les aggraver off. Yet some courts mechanically abide by statutory deadlines even when there is evidence that termination would not be in the child's best interests. ⁴⁴ Pourtant, certains tribunaux mécaniquement respecter les délais réglementaires même lorsqu'il existe des preuves que la résiliation ne serait pas dans l'intérêt de l'enfant. ⁴⁴

Although ASFA encourages state authorities to move more children into adoptive homes and holds them accountable for injuries caused by abusive parents, it exacts no corresponding scrutiny of excessive removal of children from their parents or terminations of parental rights. Bien que l'ASFA encourage les autorités étatiques de se déplacer plus d'enfants dans des foyers adoptifs et les tient responsables des blessures causées par des parents abusifs, il n'exige aucune surveillance correspondante de prélèvement excessif d'enfants de leurs parents ou résiliations de ses droits parentaux. Nor does it mandate that states implement meaningful family preservation programs. Pas plus qu'il ne le mandat que les États mettent en œuvre des programmes pertinents de préservation de la famille. ASFA clarified the definition of reasonable efforts by making child safety a priority, but not by establishing specific guidelines governing the services agencies should provide to families. L'ASFA a clarifié la définition des efforts raisonnables en rendant la sécurité des enfants une priorité, mais pas en établissant des lignes directrices précises régissant les organismes de services doivent fournir aux familles.

Far from leading invariably to risky reunifications, the act's vague reasonable efforts language permits judges frequently to terminate parental rights without any real inquiry into the agency's activities. ⁴⁵ This focus on child safety reflects the judgment that the risk of wrongful reunification of families outweighs the risk of wrongful disruptions of families. Loin de conduire invariablement à la réunification risqué, vagues de la Loi sur la langue des efforts raisonnables permet aux juges fréquemment pour mettre fin aux droits parentaux sans aucune véritable enquête sur les activités de l'agence. ⁴⁵ Cette focalisation sur la sécurité des enfants reflète le jugement que le risque de la réunification illicite des familles l'emportent sur ​​les risques des perturbations illicite des familles. This judgment, too, is misguided. Ce jugement, aussi, est erronée. The priority placed on child safety was cast as a correction of the Child Welfare Act's reasonable efforts requirement, which encouraged the return of foster children to violent homes. La priorité accordée à la sécurité des enfants a été moulé comme une correction de raisonnable la Child Welfare Act de condition efforts, ce qui a encouragé le retour des enfants placés au foyer violent. The reasonable efforts requirement, however, was itself enacted in response to evidence that agency caseworkers offered families minimal assistance and even obstructed parents' attempts to reunite with their children. ⁴⁶ L'exigence raisonnable des efforts, cependant, était elle-même adoptée en réponse à la preuve que les travailleurs sociaux l'agence a offert une assistance minimale familles et les tentatives des parents, même obstrué »pour retrouver leurs enfants. ⁴⁶

Even after the Child Welfare Act was passed, state agencies continued to make anemic efforts to prevent out-of-home placements and to reunify families. ⁴⁷ Family preservation programs often fail because they are do not address the needs of families, are inadequately funded, and do not last long enough. ⁴⁸ Caseworkers caught in the dual role of supporting families while recruiting foster and adoptive parents sometimes sabotage parents' quest to reunite with their children. ⁴⁹ Même après la Child Welfare Act a été adoptée, les agences de l'Etat a continué à faire des efforts pour empêcher anémique out-of-home placements et de réunifier les familles. ⁴⁷ programmes de préservation de famille échouent souvent parce qu'ils sont ne répondent pas aux besoins des familles, sont insuffisamment financées, et ne durent pas assez longtemps. ⁴⁸ Caseworkers pris dans le double rôle de soutien aux familles tout en recrutant des parents adoptifs et parfois saboter quête des parents pour retrouver leurs enfants. ⁴⁹

A 1997 report issued by the General Accounting Office stated that more than half of the family support programs it surveyed "were not able to serve all families who needed services primarily due to the lack of funds and staff." ⁵⁰ Un rapport de 1997 publié par le General Accounting Office a déclaré que plus de la moitié des programmes de soutien familial qu'il interrogées "ne sont pas en mesure de servir toutes les familles qui avaient besoin de services principalement en raison du manque de fonds et de personnel." ⁵⁰

Services for families in California, for example, are permitted to continue for a maximum of 6 months and, on average, end after only half this time. ⁵¹ How can agencies expect to solve problems arising from any combination of deplorable conditions --chronic poverty, dangerous neighborhoods, shoddy housing, poor health, drug addiction, profound depression, lack of childcare --with a 3-month parenting course or ephemeral crisis intervention? Services pour les familles, en Californie, par exemple, sont autorisés à continuer pour un maximum de 6 mois et, en moyenne, à la fin après seulement la moitié de ce temps. ⁵¹ Comment les agences s'attendent à résoudre les problèmes résultant de toute combinaison de conditions déplorables - la pauvreté chronique , les quartiers dangereux, les logements de mauvaise qualité, mauvaise santé, toxicomanie, dépression profonde, le manque de garde d'enfants - avec un cours de compétences parentales 3 mois ou d'intervention de crise éphémère?

It is not surprising that 20 to 32 percent of children returned home in connection with family preservation plans end up back in foster care. ⁵² "Reunifying these children with families who are not adequately prepared or supported," writes social work professor Marianne Berry, "is equal to setting the family up for yet another crisis, possibly resulting in further abuse, neglect, or even death." ⁵³ The ideology of family preservation is then blamed when inadequate efforts result in tragedy. Il n'est pas surprenant que 20 à 32 pour cent des enfants sont retournés à domicile dans le cadre de plans de préservation de la famille finissent par revenir en famille d'accueil. ⁵² "Réunifier ces enfants avec des familles qui ne sont pas suffisamment préparés ou soutenus", écrit le travail social professeur Marianne Berry », est égale à la mise en place de la famille pour encore une autre crise, pouvant entraîner de nouvelles violences, de négligence, voire la mort. " ⁵³ L'idéologie de préservation de la famille est alors blâmé quand le résultat des efforts inadéquats dans la tragédie.

ASFA's focus on child safety is also defended as a correction of judicial bias in child welfare proceedings against children's interests and in favor of parental rights. L'accent sur la sécurité de l'ASFA enfant est également défendu comme une correction de biais dans les procédures judiciaires contre les intérêts de protection de l'enfance des enfants et en faveur des droits parentaux. It seems more likely, however, that risk averse judges would be more afraid of making the wrong decision to return a child to an abusive home than a wrong decision to keep a child in state custody. ⁵⁴ Il semble plus probable, cependant, que les juges aversion au risque serait plus peur de prendre la mauvaise décision de renvoyer un enfant à un foyer violent que d'une décision erronée de garder un enfant en détention. ⁵⁴

The former error may generate scathing headlines and public outcry, while the latter will probably go unnoticed. L'erreur peut générer l'ancien manchettes acerbes et le tollé général, tandis que le second sera sans doute passée inaperçue. State officials rarely receive negative feedback as a result of mistaken decisions to intervene in poor families. Fonctionnaires de l'État reçoivent rarement des commentaires négatifs à la suite de décisions erronées d'intervenir dans les familles pauvres. ASFA exaggerates these biases against parents already present in child welfare law and puts extra pressure on judges to terminate parental rights quickly. ASFA exagère ces préjugés contre les parents déjà présents en droit de l'enfance et met une pression supplémentaire sur les juges pour mettre fin aux droits parentaux rapidement.

B. ASFA's Philosophical Flaw Flaw B. ASFA Philosophique

The pragmatic problems with ASFA's emphasis on adoption are related to a more fundamental philosophical flaw. Les problèmes pragmatiques en mettant l'accent sur l'adoption de l'ASFA sont liés à un défaut plus fondamental philosophique. Congress has misidentified the foster care problem. Le Congrès a mal identifié le problème des familles d'accueil. The injustice of the American foster care system does not stem from the low number of children being adopted. L'injustice du système de placement familial américains ne provient pas du faible nombre d'enfants adoptés.

It stems, rather, from the high number of children removed from their homes. Elle découle plutôt du nombre élevé d'enfants retirés de leur foyer. This is an injustice that is magnified by the class and race dimensions of foster care. C'est une injustice qui est amplifié par les dimensions de classe et la race des familles d'accueil. Virtually all of the parents who permanently lose custody of their children are poor. Pratiquement tous les parents qui perdent de façon permanente la garde de leurs enfants sont pauvres. A startling percentage are Black. Un pourcentage étonnant de race noire.

Each year more than 200,000 children are removed from their homes and placed in foster care. ⁵⁵ Black children are the most likely of any group to suffer this experience. Chaque année, plus de 200.000 enfants sont retirés de leur foyer et placés en famille d'accueil. ⁵⁵ enfants noirs sont les plus susceptibles d'aucun groupe de souffrir de cette expérience. In 1994, Black children made up 47 per cent of the foster care population although they were only 15 per cent of the general population under age eighteen. ⁵⁶ They are three times more likely than white children to be in foster care. ⁵⁷ In the nation's urban centers, the racial disparity is even greater. En 1994, les enfants noirs représentaient 47 pour cent de la population des familles d'accueil alors qu'ils étaient seulement 15 pour cent de la population en général de moins de dix-huit. ⁵⁶ Ils sont trois fois plus susceptibles que les enfants blancs d'être en famille d'accueil. ⁵⁷ Dans les années nation centres urbains, la disparité raciale est encore plus grande. Chicago's foster care population, for example, is almost 90 percent Black. ⁵⁸ Of 42,000 children in foster care in New York City, only 750 are white. ⁵⁹ Once Black children enter foster care, they remain there longer, are moved more often, and receive less desirable placements than white children. ⁶⁰ La population de Chicago des familles d'accueil, par exemple, est presque de 90 pour cent Noire. ⁵⁸ de 42.000 enfants en familles d'accueil à New York City, à seulement 750 sont blancs. ⁵⁹ enfants, une fois noire saisir des familles d'accueil, qu'ils y restent plus longtemps, sont déplacés plus souvent, et recevoir des placements moins souhaitable que les enfants blancs. ⁶⁰

Even if all of the thousands of Black children in foster care were adopted tomorrow, there would still be cause for concern. Même si tous les milliers d'enfants noirs dans des familles d'accueil ont été adoptées demain, il y aurait encore lieu de s'inquiéter. Acquiring permanent out-of-home placements for all these children would do nothing to stem the tide of family disruption. Acquisition permanente hors de la maison des stages pour tous ces enfants ne ferait rien pour endiguer la vague de perturbations familiales. The focus on adoption as the solution to the foster care problem directs attention away from the wide scale removal of poor Black children from their homes. L'accent mis sur l'adoption en tant que solution au problème des familles d'accueil oriente l'attention loin de l'élimination à grande échelle de pauvres enfants noirs de leurs maisons. When Congress states its aim was "to make sure that every child has the opportunity to live in a safe, stable, loving and permanent home" ⁶¹ it had in mind terminating parents' rights, not reducing poverty or building stronger supports for families. Lorsque le Congrès déclare son but était «de s'assurer que chaque enfant ait la possibilité de vivre dans une maison sûre, stable, aimante et permanente» ⁶¹ qu'il avait en tête de terminaison droits des parents, ne pas réduire la pauvreté ou renforcer les soutiens aux familles. I believe this philosophical flaw injures children, their families, and their communities. Je crois que cette faille philosophiques blesse les enfants, leurs familles et leurs communautés. It violates children's rights as much as the government's failure to protect children from domestic violence. Elle viole les droits des enfants autant que l'échec du gouvernement à protéger les enfants contre la violence domestique.

By promoting adoption so myopically, we forget that our ultimate goal should be to reduce the need for adoptions. En favorisant l'adoption afin myope, nous oublions que notre but ultime devrait être de réduire la nécessité pour les adoptions. In an ideal society we would expect nearly all children to be raised by their biological families in a healthy, safe, and flourishing environment. ⁶² Adoptions would be a well-accepted but rare alternative for children whose parents are unable or choose not to take care of them. ⁶³ Although adoption is as valuable as biology as a way to form a parent-child relationship, it typically occurs because of an unfortunate circumstance --the death of the biological parents, an unplanned pregnancy, or child abuse or neglect. Dans une société idéale on pourrait s'attendre à presque tous les enfants d'être élevés par leurs familles biologiques dans un environnement sain, sûr et prospère. ⁶² adoptions serait une alternative bien acceptée, mais rare pour les enfants dont les parents sont incapables ou ne veulent pas prendre soin . d'entre eux ⁶³ Bien que l'adoption est aussi précieux que la biologie comme un moyen de former une relation parent-enfant, il se produit généralement en raison d'une circonstance malheureuse - la mort de ses parents biologiques, une grossesse non planifiée ou d'abus ou de négligence. We can support adoption while working to curtail these sources of the need for adoption. Nous pouvons soutenir l'adoption tout en travaillant à limiter ces sources de la nécessité de l'adoption. By reducing poverty and the hazards it poses for children, an ideal society would reduce the need for adoption. En réduisant la pauvreté et les dangers qu'elle représente pour les enfants, une société idéale serait de réduire la nécessité pour l'adoption. But this is a good thing. Mais c'est une bonne chose.

Expansive social welfare programs, however, do not necessarily result in a relatively smaller foster care population. Vaste programmes d'aide sociale, cependant, ne conduit pas nécessairement à une population des familles d'accueil relativement plus petite. LeRoy Pelton observes that Western European countries with coercive, judgmental child protection systems like ours place children in foster care at similar rates as the United States, despite their substantially lower child poverty rates. ⁶⁴ LeRoy Pelton observe que les pays d'Europe occidentale avec coercition, de jugement de protection des enfants comme des enfants placer en famille d'accueil nôtre à des taux similaires à ceux des Etats-Unis, malgré leur sensiblement inférieurs taux de pauvreté infantile. ⁶⁴

"When it is placed under the cover of benevolent intervention," Pelton explains, "a coercive system can take on a life of its own and expand independently of need." ⁶⁵ According to Pelton, the main reason for the expansion of America's foster care population is the dysfunctional, dual-system structure of the child welfare apparatus. «Quand il est placé sous la couverture de l'intervention bienveillante», Pelton, explique: «un système coercitif peut prendre une vie propre et développer indépendamment de besoin." ⁶⁵ Selon Pelton, la principale raison de l'expansion des soins de l'Amérique de favoriser la population est la dysfonctionnel, double structure du système de l'appareil d'aide à l'enfance.

Child protection agencies are assigned the conflicting tasks of providing services to help families and investigating families for the purpose of removing children from their homes. Agences de protection de l'enfance sont assignées les tâches contradictoires de fournir des services pour aider les familles et les familles enquête dans le but de retirer les enfants de leurs maisons. This structure, along with the lopsided federal funding of foster care, encourage the rescue system to dominate even during periods of asserted government adoption of family preservation ideology. Cette structure, ainsi que le financement fédéral des soins de déséquilibré favoriser, encourager le système de secours à dominer, même pendant les périodes de l'adoption de l'idéologie du gouvernement a affirmé préservation de la famille.

Thus, Pelton concludes that: Ainsi, Pelton conclut que:

the overall growth of the foster care population has less to do with the growth or decline of poverty rates or services designed to ameliorate the effects of poverty than it does with the growth of the rescue system itself, and the number of families we decide to scrutinize for the abundant pitfalls of poverty that we may then elect to blame on individual parents. ⁶⁶ la croissance globale de la population des familles d'accueil a moins à voir avec la croissance ou le déclin des taux de pauvreté ou de services conçus pour atténuer les effets de la pauvreté que lui fait avec la croissance du système de sauvetage lui-même, et le nombre de familles, nous décidons d'examiner pour les pièges de la pauvreté abondante que nous peut alors choisir de blâmer les parents. ⁶⁶

Certainly providing adequate family preservation services and (better yet) decreasing child poverty would help to curtail the expansion of foster care. Certes, fournissant des services adéquats de préservation de la famille et (mieux encore) diminue la pauvreté des enfants aiderait à freiner l'expansion de la famille d'accueil. But Pelton makes a compelling case that even more critical is the elimination of the child welfare system's rescue mentality. Mais Pelton est un formidable argument que même plus critique est l'élimination de la mentalité de sauvetage du système de protection de l'enfant. This brings us back to ASFA's philosophical flaw: the law embraces more tightly the philosophy of child rescue by emphasizing adoption as the solution to foster care. Cela nous ramène à la faille philosophiques ASFA: la loi embrasse plus étroitement la philosophie de sauvetage des enfants en insistant sur l'adoption comme solution à favoriser les soins.

C. Disparaging Biological Bonds C. Obligations désobligeantes biologique

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of ASFA's focus on adoption is the message it sends about the poor and minority families whose children have been placed in foster care. Peut-être l'aspect le plus inquiétant de concentrer l'ASFA sur l'adoption est le message qu'il envoie sur les familles pauvres et des minorités dont les enfants ont été placés en famille d'accueil. Throughout the congressional testimony, reunification of children with their biological families was portrayed as risky and adoption portrayed as safe. Tout au long du témoignage au Congrès, la réunification des enfants avec leur famille biologique a été dépeint comme risquée et l'adoption dépeint comme sûrs. Virtually every mention of biological families was negative, while every mention of loving and stable homes referred to adoptive families. Pratiquement chaque mention de leur famille biologique a été négative, tandis que chaque mention du foyer aimant et stable mentionnés aux familles adoptives. Foster parents were described as "loving care-givers" who are unfairly prevented by biological parents' rights from developing stable relationships with the children they take in. ⁶⁷ Permanence and safety, the testimony assumed, came in the form of adoption, not reunification of children with their parents. Les parents d'accueil ont été décrits comme "aimant soignants» qui sont injustement empêchés par le droit des parents biologiques de développer des relations stables avec les enfants qu'elles prennent po ⁶⁷ Permanence et la sécurité, le témoignage supposé, a pris la forme d'adoption, et non pas la réunification de enfants avec leurs parents. Barbara Kennelly of Connecticut introduced the bill in the House of Representatives, for example, as a step toward "providing protection and permanency for our Nation's abused, neglected, and sometimes forgotten children." ⁶⁸ Barbara Kennelly du Connecticut a introduit le projet de loi à la Chambre des représentants, par exemple, comme une étape vers la «protection et de fournir la permanence pour les enfants de notre nation maltraités, négligés et parfois oubliés." ⁶⁸

It was rarely stated during the congressional discussion that it is usually in children's interest to stay with their parents or at least to maintain contact with them. ⁶⁹ To the contrary, the congressional record as well as the public debate was saturated with stories about parents who were permitted to brutally torture and murder their children because of caseworkers' insistence on family reunification. Il a rarement été dit pendant le débat au Congrès qu'il est généralement dans l'intérêt des enfants de rester avec leurs parents ou au moins de maintenir le contact avec eux. ⁶⁹ Au contraire, le Congressional Record ainsi que le débat public a été saturé avec des histoires sur les parents qui ont été autorisés à torturer et assassiner brutalement leurs enfants en raison des travailleurs sociaux «L'insistance sur le regroupement familial. Family preservation policies were blamed both for returning children willy nilly to violent homes and for inflating the foster care population. Des politiques de préservation de famille ont été blâmés à la fois pour le retour des enfants au bon gré mal gré des foyers violents et pour gonfler la population des familles d'accueil. Representative Dave Camp of Michigan accused the 1980 child welfare act of "creat[ ing] a system where nearly half a million children currently reside in foster care." ⁷⁰ After describing the "sufferings of the abused, abandoned, and neglected; infants who have been burned at an open fire; children raped and assaulted," an article in the Washington Post claimed that "[ t] he Family Reunification and Preservation Act is the cause of these grotesque practices." ⁷¹ The message was clear: Preserving families endangers children; placing children in adoptive homes protects them. Représentant Dave Camp du Michigan accusés la loi de 1980 enfants bien-être des "creat [ant] un système où près d'un demi million d'enfants vivent actuellement dans des familles d'accueil." ⁷⁰ Après avoir décrit les souffrances "des maltraités, abandonnés, et négligés; les nourrissons qui ont été brûlé à un feu ouvert, des enfants violés et agressés ", un article dans le Washington Post a affirmé que« [l] es regroupement familial et Loi sur la préservation est la cause de ces pratiques grotesques ». ⁷¹ Le message était clair: les familles des enfants en danger Préserver ; placer les enfants dans des foyers adoptifs les protège.

The congressional record presents a fascinating reversal of the typical comparison of adoptive and biological bonds. Le Congressional Record présente une inversion fascinant de la comparaison typique des obligations adoptifs et biologiques. The dominant American culture has always revered the genetic connection between parents and children, and treated adoption as a second-best and unnatural alternative. ⁷² The fortunes spent on fertility treatment and high tech means of conception, such as in vitro fertilization, are a powerful illustration of the value Americans place on genetic relatedness. La culture dominante américaine a toujours vénéré le lien génétique entre parents et enfants, et traitée comme une adoption, seconde meilleure alternative et contre nature. ⁷² La fortune consacré au traitement de fertilité et de haute technologie de la conception des moyens, comme la fécondation in vitro, sont un puissant illustration de la valeur que les Américains sur la parenté génétique.

Yet in supporting ASFA, speaker after speaker referred to adoptive families as real families and biological families as fake ones. Pourtant, en soutenant l'ASFA, tous les orateurs mentionnés aux familles adoptives comme de véritables familles et les familles biologiques comme des faux. Representative Pryce of Ohio urged her colleagues to support the legislation "in the interest of thousands of children who need a true family to love and protect them." ⁷³ The law "is going to bring about the joy of adoption and the bonding of a real family to so many kids." ⁷⁴ Others repeatedly pointed out, on the other hand, that biology alone does not make someone a real parent. Représentant de l'Ohio Pryce a exhorté ses collègues à soutenir la législation «dans l'intérêt de milliers d'enfants qui ont besoin d'une vraie famille à aimer et à les protéger." ⁷³ La loi "va apporter de la joie de l'adoption et le collage d'un véritable famille à tant d'enfants. " ⁷⁴ Autres souligné à plusieurs reprises, d'autre part, que la biologie ne suffit pas à rendre quelqu'un un parent réel. Erasing the stigma of adoption is an important step in expanding our notions of family. Effacement de la stigmatisation de l'adoption est une étape importante dans l'expansion de nos notions de famille. It seems, however, that this reverence of adoption over biology is reserved for the poor and minority families that are the clients of the child welfare system. ⁷⁵ Il semble, cependant, que cette révérence de l'adoption au cours de biologie est réservée pour les familles pauvres et des minorités qui sont les clients du système de protection de l'enfance. ⁷⁵

The preference for permanence at the expense of parental rights in the context of foster care also stands in stark contrast to the treatment of this issue in the context of divorce. ⁷⁶ Advocates on behalf of children generally emphasize the importance of protecting children's relationships with their parents — even parents who have lost custody of their children. La préférence pour la permanence, au détriment de ses droits parentaux dans le cadre des familles d'accueil se distingue également en contraste frappant avec le traitement de cette question dans le contexte du divorce. ⁷⁶ avocats au nom des enfants en général l'accent sur ​​l'importance de protéger les relations des enfants avec leurs parents - même les parents qui ont perdu la garde de leurs enfants. When parents divorce, judges typically issue orders that require visitation by the non-custodial parent and that often impose a great deal of inconvenience, instability, and trauma on parents and children alike. Quand les parents divorcent, les ordres des juges qui exigent généralement question de droit de visite par le parent non gardien et que, souvent, imposent beaucoup de désagréments, l'instabilité, et les traumatismes sur les parents et les enfants. When custodial parents remarry, a stepmother or stepfather is rarely treated as a substitute for a biological parent whose relationship with the child can now be discarded. Lorsque des parents gardiens se remarier, une belle-mère ou beau-père est rarement considérée comme un substitut pour un parent biologique dont la relation avec l'enfant peut maintenant être abandonnée.

Family law recognizes a strong emotional attachment between children of divorce and their non-custodial parents and views interference with this relationship as a terrible injury to the child. Droit de la famille reconnaît un fort attachement affectif entre les enfants du divorce et de leurs parents non gardiens et les interférences avec les vues de cette relation comme une terrible blessure pour l'enfant. Marsha Garrison summarizes the contrast between the approaches non-custodial relationships in divorce and foster care: Marsha Garrison résume le contraste entre les approches non privatives de relations en matière de divorce et de familles d'accueil:

In divorce, the child's relationship with a noncustodial parent is almost invariably described as a positive factor in her development that should be encouraged and facilitated; termination of the parental relationship is approved only in extreme cases where the parent threatens the child's health and safety. Dans le divorce, la relation de l'enfant avec un parent non gardien est presque invariablement décrit comme un facteur positif dans son développement qui devrait être encouragée et facilitée; cessation de la relation parentale n'est approuvé que dans des cas extrêmes où le parent menace la santé de l'enfant et de sécurité. In foster care, however, the noncustodial parent is typically seen as a threat to the child's relationship with her foster parent or her opportunity to obtain adoptive parents; termination of parental rights is urged whenever the child's return home cannot be accomplished quickly. ⁷⁷ En famille d'accueil, toutefois, le parent non gardien est généralement perçue comme une menace pour la relation de l'enfant avec son parent adoptif ou sa possibilité d'obtenir des parents adoptifs; résiliation de droits parentaux est instamment demandé à chaque retour de l'enfant ne peut pas être accomplie rapidement. ⁷⁷

This deference to non-custodial relationships after divorce raises additional questions about ASFA's support for termination of parental rights. Cette déférence pour non privatives de relations après le divorce soulève des questions supplémentaires sur le soutien de l'ASFA pour la terminaison de ses droits parentaux. Why do many children's rights advocates appreciate the importance of preserving the parent-child bond in the case of divorce but not foster care? Pourquoi les défenseurs des droits de nombreux enfants apprécient l'importance de préserver le lien parent-enfant dans le cas de divorce, mais pas favoriser les soins? For some, the reason may be economic. ⁷⁸ Preserving children's ties to non-custodial middle-class fathers helps to guarantee that these children will not need public assistance. Pour certains, la raison peut être économique. ⁷⁸ Préserver les liens des enfants à la non-détention de la classe moyenne pères contribue à garantir que ces enfants ne seront pas besoin d'une aide publique.

In contrast, terminating the rights of poor parents so their children may be adopted by wealthier ones yields a financial gain for the state. En revanche, mettre fin aux droits des parents pauvres afin que leurs enfants peuvent être adoptés par les riches donne un gain financier pour l'Etat. For others, the critical distinction may be the parental maltreatment that led to removal of children in foster care, although divorced parents may also lose custody because of they are unfit. ⁷⁹ Parental unfitness, moreover, does not necessarily lessen children's attachment to their parents. ⁸⁰ Pour d'autres, la distinction essentielle peut-être la maltraitance parentale qui a conduit à l'enlèvement d'enfants en famille d'accueil, bien que les parents divorcés peuvent aussi perdre la garde à cause de leur inaptitude. ⁷⁹ inaptitude parentale, d'ailleurs, ne signifie pas nécessairement diminuer l'attachement des enfants envers leurs parents. ⁸⁰

Perhaps the major reason is this society's centuries-old depreciation of the relationship between poor parents and their children, especially those who are Black. Peut-être la raison majeure est vieille de plusieurs siècles de cette société d'amortissement de la relation entre les parents pauvres et leurs enfants, surtout ceux qui sont noirs. Most Americans can grasp a white middle-class child's emotional attachment to her biological father even though she is being raised by a stepfather. La plupart des Américains peuvent saisir l'attachement émotionnel d'un blanc de classe moyenne enfant à son père biologique, même si elle est soulevée par un beau-père. No one doubts the immediate re-connection of a wealthy child with his family when he returns from a year at boarding school. The public has a harder time imagining a strong emotional bond between Black parents and their children. Jacquelynn Moffett, Executive Director of Homes for Black Children, discovered that the white participants in a workshop on Black adoption she conducted in Charleston, West Virginia "really did not have a concept of Black families." ⁸¹ "They really did not believe that Black families exist," Moffett explained, "so they had no concept of Blacks being caring toward children." ⁸² Poor Black mothers are typically considered deviant and uncaring; they are blamed for transferring a degenerate lifestyle of welfare dependency and crime to their children. ⁸³ Black fathers are simply thought to be absent. ⁸⁴ When parents of children in foster care are portrayed as deranged and violent monsters, it is all the more difficult for the public to believe that their children would want to maintain a relationship with them.

We should not glorify genetic relatedness as the only legitimate basis for family, nor should we discount the damage that abuse and neglect does to children's relationships with their parents.

But we should not ignore, in the name of children's rights, the interest most children in foster care have in maintaining some connection to their parents and in returning home.

III . Race, Class, and Child Welfare Politics

Given the practical and philosophical flaws in the promotion of AFSA as a children's rights vehicle, what were the political forces driving the shift in federal policy? I do not deny the genuine concern of children's rights advocates who fought to prevent the endangering of children by caseworkers who misinterpreted the reasonable efforts standard. But the embrace of adoption as a solution to the foster care problem stemmed from broader political concerns that reflected race and class struggles in this country. The passage of AFSA corresponded with the growing disparagement of mothers receiving public assistance and welfare reform's retraction of the federal safety net for poor children. The rejection of public aid to poor families in favor of private solutions to poverty, such as marriage and child support enforcement, was mirrored in the appeal to adoption to fix the overload of children in foster care. The intersection of these federal welfare and adoption reform laws marks the first time in this nation's history that "states have a federal mandate to protect children from abuse and neglect, but no corresponding mandate to provide basic economic support to poor families." ⁸⁵

The act was also tied to the growing interest in removing barriers to white-middle class couples' ability to adopt, especially race-matching adoption policies.

A. Welfare Reform

AFSA was passed on the heels of the overhaul of federal welfare policy. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (" PRA") ended the federal guarantee of cash assistance to America's children and allowed the states to implement extensive welfare reform programs. These welfare reform measures make it more difficult for some poor mothers to take care of their children in several ways: they reduce the amount of cash assistance to families; they cut off payments altogether to some families; and they require mothers to work and to participate in job training, counseling, and other programs, often without adequate child care.

What will happen to the children of mothers who fail to meet new work rules because of child care or transportation problems, who are unable to find work within the two-year time limit, or who leave their children at home without adequate care while they participate in required work programs? It is likely that some of them will be removed from their mother's custody and placed in foster care. A recent New York Times article on Wisconsin's welfare plan reports that 5 percent of mothers cut off public assistance have been forced to "abandon their children." ⁸⁷ There may not be enough families lifted out of poverty by welfare-to-work programs to offset the numbers who will be forced into the child welfare system by time limits, sanctions, and working conditions. ⁸⁸ In short, welfare reform is likely to cause a net increase in the number children moved into foster care.

The elimination of guaranteed federal assistance to poor families is related in a number of ways either directly or indirectly to the recommendation of adoption for poor children. Some advocates of work requirements anticipated welfare mothers' loss of custody by promoting the use of institutional arrangements for poor children. Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, for example, argued that government funds going to children born to welfare mothers should be diverted to programs that would put their babies up for adoption or place them in orphanages. ⁸⁹

These suggestions fostered the notion that poor children are better off under state supervision than under their parents' care.

Along with work requirements and benefit reductions that make children vulnerable to child welfare intervention, the new welfare law contains provisions that affect funding of child welfare programs and promote disruption of poor families. The PRA leaves federal funds for foster care and adoption assistance an uncapped entitlement while reducing and capping federal funds for cash assistance to families and for child protective services that support families. ⁹⁰ Child welfare agencies will be faced with the choice of finding the funds to preserve families whose welfare benefits have expired or placing the children in foster care. The availability of federal matching funds for foster care may provide a financial incentive to remove these children from their homes.

In addition, federal law no longer mandates that states give cash assistance to relatives who care for poor children. Like parents, relatives are subject to work requirements and lose their benefits if they fail to find work within the time limits. ⁹¹ Some recipients caring for a relative's child may return the child to foster care rather than undergo the added burdens of job-related requirements or community service. ⁹² The law, moreover, may make agencies more reluctant to place children with relatives who are not economically self-sufficient.

Welfare reform also makes it more difficult for parents whose children had been removed from the home to regain custody. The federal welfare law cuts off aid to parents for children who are away from home for 45 days or more. ⁹³ This hardly gives parents with children temporarily placed in foster care time to correct the conditions that led to the removal. The loss of benefits may cause parents to be evicted from their homes, run out of food, and lose other resources needed for reunification with their children. They may also be required to comply with a conflicting set of requirements from two state agencies --for example, attending parenting classes, completing a drug treatment program, and finding safer housing under a child welfare case plan while attending job readiness classes and searching for a job under a welfare-to-work plan. ⁹⁴ New expedited termination procedures under ASFA and state law intensify the time pressure these parents face.

B. Transracial Adoption

The shift in federal policy from family preservation toward adoption also corresponded with the change in the federal position on transracial adoption. For decades, the federal government permitted public adoption agencies to enforce race-matching policies that sought to place Black children with Black adoptive families alone. In laws passed in 1994 and 1996, however, Congress prohibited agencies receiving federal funding from placing children according to race or even from taking race into account in placement decisions. ⁹⁵ Federal support of transracial adoption has been championed as a critical step in increasing the numbers of adoptions of Black children, the population that has the lowest rate of permanent placements. Race-matching policies, it is argued, damage Black children by denying them placements with white adoptive parents and are a principal reason for the plight of Black children languishing in foster care. ⁹⁶ But adoption policy has historically tracked the market for children, serving the interests of adults seeking to adopt more than the children who need stable homes. Child welfare officials abandoned the child rescue philosophy of the 19th century and refrained from terminating parental rights when the supply of newborn infants available for adoption exceeded the demand. ⁹⁷ In more recent decades, the growing demand for adoptable older children generated policies reminiscent of the rescue approach that terminate parental rights quickly to free children for adoption. ⁹⁸ The escalated retreat from family preservation programs and from race-matching rules can similarly be seen as an effort to increase the supply of children for white adoptive families.

Both congressional and media discussions of ASFA linked family preservation policies to the difficulties white middle-class couples had in adopting Black children in foster care. A US News and World Report story about ASFA, for example, opened with the story of a white North Carolina physician and his wife who resorted to adopting two Romanian orphans after several American agencies rejected their offer to adopt a Black child. ⁹⁹ This article and others implied that the emphasis on reunifying Black children with their biological families unfairly prevented white couples from adopting children in this country.

The rhetoric supporting ASFA praised reforms in federal child welfare policy for removing the twin barriers to adoption – race-matching restrictions and prolonged family preservation efforts. Terminating parents' rights faster and abolishing race-matching policies were presented as a combined strategy for increasing the numbers of adoptions of Black children by white families. By linking these two issues – family preservation and transracial adoption — commentators seemed to claim that the foster care problem could be solved by moving more Black children permanently from their parents into white adoptive homes.

The emphasis on freeing children for adoption heightens the tension between foster parents and biological parents, a contest that increasingly takes on a racial cast. The major motion picture Losing Isaiah portrayed the legal battle between a Black recovered crack addict who tries to regain custody of the son she abandoned in a garbage dump after he had been raised for several years by a loving white nurse. Cities across the country have been riveted by similar real life conflicts between Black biological mothers and white foster parents.

The Baby T case captured front page headlines in Chicago for more than a month. ¹⁰⁰ The case pitted a Black mother who lost custody of her son when he was born cocaine-exposed against one of Chicago's most powerful couples, a white alderman and appellate court judge, who had been his foster parents for nearly three years. Having recovered from her drug addiction and followed the permanency plan, the mother sought to regain custody of her son. The Chicago Tribune closely covered the parental fitness hearing in juvenile court for three weeks, including detailed descriptions of testimony, moving color photographs of the parties, interviews with experts, and explanations of the state procedures for terminating parental rights. ¹⁰¹ It was an unusual display of attention to the kind of custody hearing concerning a Black child that takes place in Chicago courts every day. The Baby T case became a cause celebre not only because of the notoriety of the foster parents, but also because of their race.

These contests bring to the surface a theme that runs more subtly through some of the discourse supporting transracial adoption — the belief that Black children fare better when they are raised by white adoptive families than if they are returned to their homes. Advocates of transracial adoption frequently assert the benefits of racial assimilation that Black children and white parents will experience by living together. In Family Bonds , for example, Elizabeth Bartholet rejects the claim that Black children belong with Black parents not only because "there is no evidence that black parents do a better job than white parents of raising black children with a sense of pride in their racial background," but also because Black children reap substantial advantages from a white environment. ¹⁰² Unlike Black children "living in a state of relative isolation or exclusion from the white world," Bartholet contends, "black children raised in white homes are comfortable with their blackness and also uniquely comfortable in dealing with whites."

As in the rhetoric promoting ASFA, the rhetoric promoting transracial adoption described adoptive homes as superior to children's existing family relationships.

IV . Adding Social Justice to Children's Rights

The notion of rights in general is subject to the criticism of being indeterminate. ¹⁰³ But children's rights, without attention to their political context, are especially indeterminate. Children's rights talk is easily co-opted by powerful people to achieve their social objectives and to maintain their social position. An example is the way the anti-abortion movement seized the valuable monopoly on the claim of caring about children's lives. As I discussed above, it is not at all clear that speedy termination of parental rights to free children for adoption furthers the interests of most children in foster care. Moreover, what is advocated as benefiting children in foster care contradicts the traditional understanding of children's need to maintain a relationship with their parents. Most important, the shift in federal child welfare policy directs attention away from the chief injustice of the foster care system – the removal of hundreds of thousands of poor and disproportionately Black children from their homes.

Framing the critique of family preservation in terms of children's rights masks battles between other political interests. Children rarely speak for themselves, so the issue underlying a claim of children's rights is often determining which adult will speak for children. These contests are often political struggles that are influenced by hierarchies of race, class, and gender. A dominant contest in the debate about family preservation is between the interests of two sets of parents, not between children and their biological parents. ASFA gives foster parents and preadoptive parents an opportunity to appear in hearings that affect children's custody. ¹⁰⁴

Senator Grassley defended this provision on the grounds that foster and preadoptive parents "are the ones in the best position to ... represent the children's concerns. It is an important change to make as we seek to better represent the children's best interests." ¹⁰⁵ Thus, the act chooses foster and preadoptive parents over biological parents to represent children in foster care. ¹⁰⁶ Allowing preadoptive parents to intervene in unfitness hearings intensifies the class and race conflicts often inherent in these adjudications. Deciding the best interests of the child in this setting might conjure up the question, would this child be better off in the comfortable home of this well-to-do couple or struggling on public assistance with that neglectful mother?

The de-politicized conception of children's rights leads to uncertain results. It is natural to feel empathy with any suffering child and to seek to end that suffering as soon as possible. In attending to the suffering of one child, however, we may neglect or even harm many others. ¹⁰⁷ Our celebration of the "rescue" of a child fortunate enough to find an adoptive home may come at the expense of hundreds of others who have no hope of ever leaving foster care. In focusing on the physical pain of children abused by their parents, we may forget the emotional pain of children who were needlessly removed from their parents and desperately want to return home. 108 As Professor Garrison poignantly observes, for most foster children "loving foster or adoptive parents will not, any more than stepparents, erase the ties that bind parent and child." ¹⁰⁹ Once again, which tragic story gets broadcast by the media and appeals most to the public may depend less on the amount of children's suffering than on the political interests at stake.

Finally, a notion of children's rights devoid of political context is based on an inaccurate description of the sources of children's welfare. Each child is embedded in a social network composed of her family, community, social groups, and the broader society. The rights of Black children must be interpreted in the context of racial oppression. Individualized explanations of harm do not account for the particular injury inflicted by racially disparate state intervention in families. Focusing on individual cases, many of which are difficult to judge, obscures the impact of state interventions taken as a whole as well as the impact on the Black community. High rates of removal of Black children from their homes harm Black people as a group, as well as individuals and their families. ¹¹⁰

Black Americans' welfare is determined not only by the atomistic decisions of each individual but also by the condition of the entire community. The excessive disruption of Black families affects the stability of the group as a whole, weakening its ability to struggle against the many forms of institutional discrimination. The devaluation of Black families' autonomy and relationships sends a message of inferiority about every member of the group. As part of the group, Black children are severely harmed by these indignities.

My understanding of rights and inequalities of power leads me to be skeptical of any purely individualized notion of rights. Without careful attention to social justice, rights tend to reinforce social hierarchies and benefit the most privileged members of society. To be just, children's rights must be part of a broader struggle to eradicate oppressive structures that imprison children and to create a more egalitarian society that cherishes all children. Supporting families to prevent removal of children from their homes and the termination of parental rights fits within this struggle.

1 Professor, Northwestern University School of Law; Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research. I presented earlier versions of this essay at a conference on Children's Rights and the Constitution sponsored by University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law and as the Orthwein Lecture at Washington University School of Law, and thank the participants for their comments. I am also grateful to Donyelle Gray for excellent research assistance and to the Institute for Policy Research for generous research support. This essay is part of a larger book project entitled, "Shattered Bonds: Race and the Politics of Child Welfare."

2 Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 105-89, 111 Stat. 2115 (1997) (codified in scattered sections of 42 USC).

3 Cheers for New Law on Adoptions , NY Times, Nov. 20, 1997, at A24. In 1995, only 20,000 children in foster care were adopted. US Dep't of health & Human Servs., Adoption 2002: A Response to the Presidential Executive Memorandum on Adoption Issued Dec. 14, 1996 (1997). In response to President Clinton's Adoption Initiative, the US Department of Health and Human Services prepared the report Adoption 2002 outlining an agenda to overcome barriers to adoption and to accelerate permanency for children in foster care. See id. Voir id. President Clinton's 1998 budget requested $10 million for technical assistance to states aimed at meeting the Adoption Initiative's goals. Id. Id. at __.

4 Public Law 96-272.

5 M. 5 M. Allen and J. Knitzer, "Child Welfare: Examining the Policy Framework" in BG McGowen and W. Meezan, eds., Child Welfare: Current Dilemmas, Future Directions (Itasca, IL.: Peacock, 1983): 93, 120-21. The Child Welfare Act provides that "in each case, reasonable efforts will be made (a) prior to the placement of a child in foster care, to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of a child from his home, and (b) to make it possible for the child to return to his home." 42 USC 671 (a)( 15).

6 Both ASFA and the 1980 Child Welfare Act reflect the prevailing wisdom that children in foster care should be quickly placed in permanent homes because the instability of foster care damages children's psychological and social development. See generally Henry S. Maas & Richard E. Engler, Jr., Children in Need of Parents (1959) (documenting foster care "drift"); Joseph Goldstein, et al., Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973) (asserting the influential theory that continuity in children's relationships with a caregiver is essential to normal psychological development). While the 1980 law emphasized returning children to their biological parents, the AFSA amendments emphasize freeing children for adoption. The Child Welfare Act, however, also provided for termination of parental rights as an avenue for permanency. For critiques of the prominence of permanency planning in child welfare policy, see Marsha Garrison, Why Terminate Parental Rights?, 35 Stan. L. Rev. 423 (1983); Jennifer Ayres Hand, Note, Preventing Undue Terminations: A Critical Evaluation of the Length-of-Time-Out-of-Custody Ground for Termination of Parental Rights, 71 NYUL REV. 1251, (1996).

7 Statement of Kennelly, 143 Cong. Rec. Rec. H10776-05, H10787.

8 ASFA requires states to file a petition to terminate the rights of parents whose child has been in foster care for 15 of the previous 22 months, unless a relative is caring for the child, a compelling reason exists why termination would not be in the best interests of the child, or the state did not provide reasonable efforts for reunification. 42 USC S 675 (5)( E). ASFA also requires a permanency hearing to be held within 12 months of a child's entry into foster care. 42 USC S 675 (5)( C).

9 ASFA provides that, the Secretary of Health and Human Services may provide technical assistance to states to increase the numbers of adoptions, including help in developing guidelines for expediting termination of parental rights, specialized units for moving children toward adoption as a permanency goal, and models to encourage fast-tracking of infants into preadoptive placements. 42 USC S 673 (b) (i).

10 Under ASFA, the federal government pays states $4,000 multiplied by the amount by which the number of foster child adoptions in the state during the fiscal year exceeds a base number of foster child adoptions. The government pays $6000 for each adoption of a special needs child. 42 USC 673 (d) (1).

11 States may concurrently "identify, recruit, process, and approve a qualified family" to adopt the child. 42 USC 673 (a)( F). These dual purposes of reuniting foster children with their families while preparing them for adoption create conflicting incentives for child welfare agencies that are likely to attenuate their efforts at family preservation. See Hand, supra note ___, at 1289 (noting that "[ l] ength-of-time-out-of-custody statutes cast the child welfare agency in the conflicting roles of family preserver and advocate for termination"). Hand explains why this conflict exacerbates caseworkers' antagonism toward biological parents:

The agency is usually responsible for investigating the biological family and making the initial recommendation to remove the child from the home. Thus, from the start the agency's role is more that of an adversary than that of an advocate. Furthermore, the agency is responsible for recruiting and training foster parents, thus creating a certain allegiance to them. Despite the possibility that the agency, because of these factors, may be closely allied to the foster parent and even antagonistic to the biological parent, ... the agency [has] the role of reunifying the biological family. Given these conflicting incentives, it is not surprising that child welfare agencies are often found not to have made reasonable efforts at reunification.

Id. Id. at 1289-90. ASFA intensifies this conflict by encouraging caseworkers to pursue adoption, weakening even more their incentive to preserve the biological family. Caseworkers' conflicting roles reflect a more fundamental "dual-role" structure of public child welfare agencies that combines helping impoverished families with coercing them to conform to agency standards through the threat of removing their children. See LeRoy Pelton, For Reasons of Poverty: A Critical Analysis of the Public Child Welfare System in the United States ___ (1989). Social work professor LeRoy Pelton proposes addressing this problem by transferring the investigative and foster care functions of child welfare agencies to law enforcement agencies and the civil court system, respectively, so that the child welfare system can be devoted to providing preventive services to families on a nonjudgmental, voluntary acceptance basis. Id. Id.

12 673 (a)( C).

13 See Children's Defense Fund, The State of America's Children 66 (1998).

14 In testimony regarding the Adoption Promotion Act of 1997, the Children's Welfare League of America expressed concern that the bill's deadline for initiating termination proceedings might "disrupt good and timely progress toward reunification." Prepared Testimony of Child Welfare League of America before the House Ways and Means Committee Human Resources Subcommittee, HR 867, The "Adoption Promotion Act of 1997" (April 8, 1997). See also Prepared Testimony of Jess McDonald, Director, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services on behalf of the American Public Welfare Association before the House Ways & Means Committee, Human Resources Subcommittee (April 8, 1997) (expressing concerns that the time frame to initiate termination of parental rights proceedings "is an overly prescriptive mandate ... [that] does not allow states the flexibility to decide on a case by case basis what is in the best interests of a child"). Timetables are a critical element of state child protection schemes because "the most commonly used ground for termination is a finding that a child has been out of the custody of the parent, usually in foster care, for a statutory period of time during which the parent has failed to remedy the circumstances that led to the child's removal from the home." Hand, supra note ___, at 1251, 1261-67.

15 Marcia Robinson Lowry, Commentary, 8 The Future of Children 123, 125 (1998).

16 143 Cong. Rec. Rec. H10776-05, H10789.

17 From Foster Care to Adoption, The Washington Post, May 10, 1997, at A24.

18 Jeff Katz, Finally the Law Puts These Kids' Interests First, Milwaukee J. Sentinel, Dec. 28, 1997, at 1.

19 Richard J. Gelles, The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives (1996).

20 Id. at 115-20. Numerous newspaper articles at the time also blamed tragic cases of child abuse on family reunification policies. See, eg, Michael Quinn, Family Preservation --It Can Kill, Newsday (New York), Jan. 11, 1996, at A33. The Child Welfare Act requires states to show reasonable efforts toward reunifying foster children with their biological families to receive federal funding for foster care services. 42 USC S 671( 1) (15) (1994).

21 Gelles, supra note ___, at 152.

22 Gelles, supra note ___, at 143 (emphasis in original).

23 Children's rights advocates frequently assert a conflict between parents' rights and children's interests in the context of foster care and adoption. See, eg, Elizabeth Bartholet, Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting 50 (1993) (arguing that barriers to adoption sacrifice children's interests for the sake of parental rights); John J. Musewicz, The Failure of Foster Care: Federal Statutory Reform and the Child's Right to Permanence, 54 S. Cal. L. Rev. 633, 656 (1981) ("[ I] t is clear that parental rights are all but absolute, even though they may conflict with the child's need for permanence."); David J. Herring, Inclusion of the Reasonable Efforts Requirement in Termination of Parental Rights Statutes: Punishing the Child for the Failures of the State Child Welfare System, 54 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 139 (1992). But, as Marsha Garrison insightfully observes, this perceived conflict is a striking departure from "the general emphasis on relationship protection that has characterized advocacy on behalf of children." Marsha Garrison, Parents' Rights vs. Children's Interests: The Case of the Foster Child, 22 NY U Rev. L. & Soc. Change 371, 373 (1996).

24 Renny Golden, Disposable Children: America's Welfare System 149 (1997).

25 See, eg, id. at ___; Cornel West & Sylvia Ann Hewlett, The War Against Parents (1997) (proposing a parents' bill of rights as a means of furthering children's interests); Garrison, Parents' Rights vs. Children's Interests, supra note ___, at 394 (arguing that terminating parents' rights neglects children's emotional needs); Naomi R. Cahn, Children's Interests in a Familial Context: Poverty, Foster Care, and Adoption, ___ Ohio State LJ ___ (forthcoming 1999). Marcia Robinson Lowry, the executive director of Children's Rights, Inc., a national advocacy organization that works to reform child welfare systems, rejects the choice between family preservation and child protection. See Lowry, supra note ___, at 125. She criticizes both the abuse of family preservation philosophy "as a justification for doing nothing until families disintegrate and cause devastating harm to children" and the abuse of child protection philosophy "in which children are removed from many shaky but salvageable families to endure the questionable benefits of foster care systems." Id. Id.

26 Quoted in Golden, supra note ___, at 153.

27 See Joseph Goldstein, Anna Freud, and Albert J. Solnit, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (New York: Free Press, 1979), 32-34. 28 Peggy Cooper Davis and Gautum Barua, "Custodial Choices for Children at Risk: Bias, Sequentiality, and the Law," University of Chicago Law School Roundtable 2( 1995): 139, 141-42.

29 42 USC 671 (a)( 15)( A) & (D) (1994).

30 See Akhil R. Amar & Daniel Widawsky, Child Abuse as Slavery: A Thirteenth Amendment Response to DeShaney, 105 Harv. L. Rev. 1359 (1992) (arguing that the Thirteenth Amendment requires states to protect children from the domination of an abusive parent). However, efforts to reunify child victims of severe abuse with a nonviolent parent may nevertheless be warranted where only one parent inflicted the injuries. Social workers and judges often blame mothers who fail to protect their children from abuse and sometimes unfairly deprive them of custody of their children. See generally Naomi R. Cahn, Civil Images of Battered Women: The Impact of Domestic Violence on Child Custody Decisions, 44 Vanderbilt L. Rev. 1041 (1991); Dorothy E. Roberts, Motherhood and Crime, 79 Iowa L. Rev. 95 (1995). See, eg, In re Farley, 469 NW 2d 295 (Mich. 1991) (terminating a battered woman's parental rights based on a psychologist's prediction that the woman was at risk of entering into a relationship with another abusive man).

31 See Hand, supra note ___, at 1252 ("[ T] he length-of-time-out-of-custody ground allows for the termination of parental rights without a showing of abuse, abandonment, or other separate statutory grounds."); 2 Ann M. Haralambie, Handling Child Custody, Abuse and Adoption Cases S 13.17 (1983)(" This ground addresses the problem of the parent whose rights cannot be terminated under other grounds but whose child would otherwise be relegated to the uncertain life a long-term foster care.").

32 For an argument that ASFA fails to further children's interests because it does not go far enough to promote adoption, see Robert M. Gordon, Drifting Through Byzantium: The Promise and Failure of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, 83 Minn. L. Rev. 637 (1999).

33 Martin Guggenheim, The Effects of Recent Trends to Accelerate the Termination of Parental Rights of Children in Foster Care — An Empirical Analysis in Two States, 29 Fa. LQ 121 (1995).

34 Id. at ___.

35 Id. at 131.

36 Joyce E. Everett, "Introduction: Children in Crisis," in Joyce E. Everett, Sandra S. Chipungu & Bogart R. Leashore, eds., Child Welfare: An Africentric Perspective (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991: 1, 3; Sylvia S. Gray and Lynn M. Nybell, "Issues in African-American Family Preservation," Child Welfare 69 (1990): 513, 513-14; Sandra M. Stehno, "Differential Treatment of Minority Children in Service Systems," Social Work 27 (1982) : 39, 39-41.

37 Guggenheim, supra note __, at 134. Accord Garrison, Why Terminate Parental Rights?, supra note __, at 473 ("[ T] he permanency program's solution to the problem of foster care drift will probably hurt the interests of foster children more than it will help them."). Jennifer Ayres Hand argues that courts should not terminate parental rights because of length of time out of custody when the following factors indicate that permanency will not be achieved: "when a child has substantial bonds with the parent, when the child is not likely to be adopted, or when the state child welfare agency has not made reasonable efforts at helping the parent to remedy the circumstances that led to the child's placement." Hand, supra note ___, at 1270. See also Michael S. Wald, State Intervention on Behalf of "Neglected" Children: Standards for Removal of Children from Their Homes, Monitoring the Status of Children in Foster Care, and Termination of Parental Rights, 28 Stan. L. Rev. 623, 691, 696-99, 706 (1976) (recommending termination of parental rights after 1 year for all children who cannot be returned home, except when there is a close parent-child relationship, the child is placed with a relative who does not wish to adopt, or "permanent placement is not feasible or desired by the child"); Patrick R. Tamilia, A Response to Elimination of the Reasonable Efforts Required Prior to Termination of Parental Rights Status, 54 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 211, 217 (1992) ("[[ T] ermination of parental rights is not a wise option unless there is a prospective adoptive parent available for the child.").

38 Hand, supra note __, at ___; Gordon, supra note __, at 667-72 (criticizing ASFA's "lack of age sensitivity").

39 Douglas J. Besharov, Commentary, 8 The Future of Children 120, 123 (1998).

40 Garrison, Parents' Rights vs. Children's Interests, supra note ___, at 378 (suggesting foster guardianship or "open" adoption as alternatives to traditional adoptive placement); Nadine Taub, Assessing the Impact of Goldstein, Freud, and Solnit's Proposals: An Introductory Overview, 12 NYU Rev. L. & Soc. Change, 485, 491-92 (same); Mark Hardin, Legal Placement Options to Achieve Permanence for Children in Foster Care, in Foster Children in the Courts 128 (Mark Hardin ed., 1983) (discussing various options for long-term placement). Professor Garrison correctly asserts that any "[ j] ustification for a policy favoring adoption over those alternatives must be based on the evidence demonstrating that severance of parental ties better serves children's interests than does preservation." Garrison, Parents' Rights vs. Children's Interests, supra note ___, at 379.

41 See Charlene Ingram, Kinship Care: From Last Resort to First Choice, 75 Child Welfare 550 (1996); Megan M. O'Laughlin, Note, A Theory of Relativity: Kinship Foster Care May Be the Key to the Pendulum of Terminations vs. Reunification, 51 Van. L. Rev. 1427 (1998) (advocating a federal kinship care policy).

42 Prepared testimony of Jess McDonald. See also Prepared Testimony of Gary J. Stangler, Director Missouri Department of Social Services on Behalf of the American Public Welfare Association before Senate Committee on Finance, Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy (May 21, 1997) (" For many children, foster placement with relatives is the best permanent placement for a child."). Illinois, Maryland, and Delaware were approved for child welfare demonstration waivers that allow these states to address issues of kinship care through a program of subsidized guardianship. Id.; Prepared Testimony of Jess McDonald. Subsidized guardianship adds legal permanence to the relationship between children and kin caretakers without the disruption caused by adoption. See generally Meryl Schwartz, Reinventing Guardianship: Subsidized Guardianship, Foster Care, and Child Welfare, 22 NY U Rev. L. & Soc. Change 441 (1996) (advocating subsidized guardianship as an option for permanency for children in foster care). Without the federal waiver, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 requires states to prefer adoption over guardianship. See 42 USC SS 670-671 (1994).

43 Richard P. Barth et al., From Child Abuse to Permanency Planning: Child Welfare Services Pathways and Placements 213 (1994); Jesse L. Thornton, Permanency Planning for Children in Kinship Foster Homes, 70 Child Welfare 593, 597-98 (1991) (finding that 85 % of sample of kinship foster parents did not want to adopt).

44 See, eg, In re JM, 574 NW 2d 717 (Minn. 1998).

45 Hand, supra note ___, at 1281 (noting that the lack of legislative definition allows judges to "rubber stamp" agencies' reasonable efforts); Shotton, supra note ___, at 227 ("[ M] any judges simply ignore the reasonable efforts requirement or else make positive findings based on inaccurate or incomplete information."). The Child Welfare Act does not require that states make reasonable efforts a prerequisite to termination of parental rights. Hand, supra note ___, at 1278. Ten states have statutes permitting termination of parental rights based on length of time out of custody without any reasonable efforts requirement. Id. Id. at 1278 n. 146. 146. But see Debra Ratterman, Judicial Determination of Reasonable Efforts, 15 Children Today 26, 30-32 (1986) (reporting that many agencies studied "recognize the importance of documenting preventive services in obtaining a favorable judicial determination'). See generally Debra Ratterman, GD Dodson & Mark. Hardin, Reasonable Efforts to Prevent Foster Care Placement: A Guide to Implementation (1987).

46 Hand, supra note ___, at 1279.

47 See Alice C. Shotton, Making Reasonable Efforts in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases: Ten Years Later, 26 Cal. WL Rev. 223, 241-50 (1989-1990) (describing agencies' failures to provide assistance to parents with children in foster care); Richard Barth & Marianne Berry, Implications of Research on the Welfare of Children Under Permanency Planning, in 1 Child Welfare Res. Rev. 323, 325 (Richard P. Barth et al. eds., 1994) ("{ F] amily preservation services are still not available for the vast majority of families in need.).

48 Mark E. Courtney, Factors Associated with the Reunification of Foster Children with Their Families, 68 Soc. Serv. Serv. Rev. 81 (1994) ( stating that survey of children entering foster care between 1988 and 1991 found 70% received only emergency response services, 20% received no services, and only 10% received extensive services); Edith Fein & Anthony N. Maluccio, Permanency Planning : Another Remedy to Jeopardy, 66 Soc. Serv. Serv. Rev. 335, 339 (1992) (describing family preservation programs as "short-term, crisis-oriented, and stopgap.").

49 See Hand, supra note __, at 1280 (" Caseworkers have been known to fail to assist parents in obtaining housing, to unreasonably oppose visitation of the child by the parents, to place children in homes that are not easily accessible to the parent, to fail to tailor the reasonable efforts to the specific problems facing the family, and, in some instances, to not do much of anything at all.").

50 General Accounting Office, Child Welfare: States' Progress in Implementing Family Preservation and Support Services 3 (1997).

51 Marianne Berry, Keeping Families Together 4 (1994).

52 Id. Despite the federal reasonable efforts mandate, the foster care population grew by 45 % between 1985 and 1990, from 276,000 to 400,000 children. House Comm. on Ways & Means, 102 nd Cong., 2d Sess., Overview of Entitlement Programs, 1992 Green Book 903 (Comm. Print 1992). The average length of stay in foster care, moreover, remained about 2 years over this period. Select Comm. On Children, Youth & Families, 101 st Cong., 1 st Sess., No Place To Call Home: Discarded Children in America 6 (Comm. Print 1989).

53 Berry, supra note __, at 4.

54 Davis & Barua, supra note ___, at 152. See also Hand, supra note ___, at 1286- 87 (" Many commentators ... have observed that the lack of definition of reasonable efforts ... opens the door to judicial and agency bias against the biological parent."); RJ Hunner, Active and Reasonable Efforts To Preserve Families: A Guide for Delivering Services in Compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 and the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (Seattle, Wa.: Northwest Resource Associates 1986) (observing that fear of liability motivates social workers to avoid the risk of harm by removing children from the home).

55 [Check figure and cite source]

56 Adoption and Support of Abused Children: Testimony Before the Senate Comm. On Finance, 105 th Cong., available in 1997 WL 14151914 (statement of Valora Washington, program director for the Families for Kids Initiative of the WK Kellogg Foundation). [Find additional sources]

57 Children's Defense Fund, Black and White Children in America: Key Facts (Washington, DC, 1985). [Update] [Update]

58 Patrick Murphy, Wasted __ (1997).

59 Remarks of Martin Guggenheim, Children's Rights Conference, University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Feb. 6, 1999. [Find additional support]

60 Edmund Mech, Public Social Services to Minority Children and Their Families, in Children in Need of Roots (RO Washington & Joan Baros-Van Hull, eds. 1985).

61 144 Cong. Rec. Rec. S12452-01, S12452.

62 Professor Larry May, a philosopher at Washington University, suggested that my statement that there would be fewer adoptions in an ideal society suggests that I harbor a bias against adoptive parents. See Response of Larry May to Dorothy Roberts, Orthwein Lecture on Race, Poverty and New Directions in Child Welfare Policy, Washington University School of Law, March 10, 1999. I believe that adoptive families should have the same legal and social status as biological families. See Dorothy E. Roberts, The Genetic Tie, 62 U. Chi. L. Rev. 209 (1995) (arguing that we place too much importance on genetic relatedness). Adoptive parents are just as good as biological ones. My criticism is directed at the system that produces children in need of adoption, not at adoption itself or at people who adopt. I am grateful to Professor May for his comments.

63 Alternatively, we could imagine a society in which biology and adoption are treated as real, equally valued options for selecting the legal parents of every single child. In this hypothetical society, genetic relatedness would never be privileged over adoption. The state might select the parents for all children or all biological parents might be socialized to freely give their children to others to raise. This notion of parenthood, however, differs dramatically from the one held by most people in our society and, indeed, in most human societies.

64 See LeRoy H. Pelton, Commentary, 8 The Future of Children 126, 128 (1998); LeRoy H. Pelton, Child Welfare Policy and Practice: The Myth of Family Preservation, 67 Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 545, ___ (1997). In 1992, less than 2 percent of Swedish children lived in poverty, while more than 20 percent of American children were poor. Duncan Lindsey, The Welfare of Children 222, figure 8.16 (1994). See also Ruth Sidel, Keeping Women and Children Last: America's War on the Poor 180-82 (1996) (attributing low poverty rates in the Netherlands, France, and Sweden to generous national welfare programs).

65 Pelton, Commentary, at 128.

66 Pelton, Child Welfare Policy and Practice, at 552.

67 Pomeroy, 143 Cong. Rec. Rec. H10776-05, H10789.

68 143 Cong. Rec. Rec. H10776-05, H10788.

69 An exception is Rep. DeWine's Senate testimony, 142 Cong. Rec. Rec. S5710-01, S5712.

70 143 Cong. Rec. Rec. H10776-05, H10788.

71 Mary McGrory, Adopt a Sense of Outrage, Washington Post, May 12, 1996, at ___.

72 Bartholet, supra note ___, at ___; Roberts, The Genetic Tie, supra note ___, at ___.

73 143 Cong. Rec. Rec. H10776-05, H10789.

74 143 Cong. Rec. Rec. H10776-05, H10790.

75 Several child welfare advocates warned me when I wrote The Genetic Tie, which criticizes the importance we place on genetic relatedness, not to advocate eliminating legal recognition of the biological bond between parents and children because this move would disadvantage poor and minority parents whose relationship with their children is already devalued. See Roberts, The Genetic Tie, supra note ___.

76 Marsha Garrison, Parents' Rights vs. Children's Interests: The Case of the Foster Child, 22 NYU Rev. L. & Soc. Change 371 (1996).

77 Id. at 373.

78 Id. at 386 (" If the child is adopted by parents who can afford to pay his keep, he costs the state nothing, and even subsidized adoption is cheaper than foster care.").

79 See Judith S. Wallerstein & Joan Berlin Kelly, Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce 253 (1980) (finding that 15% of middle-class divorced fathers studied suffered from severe psychiatric illness, 40 % of father-child relationships were "profoundly troubled," and 20% of surveyed children moderately or intensely feared their fathers).

80 Garrison, Parents' Rights vs. Children's Interests, supra note ___, at 379, citing John Bowlby, Maternal Care and Mental Health 120 (1952) (" Even when they are with kindly foster-parents these children feel their roots to be in the homes where, perhaps, they have been neglected and ill-treated, and [they] keenly resent criticisms directed against their parents."). Other research demonstrating that most children in foster care continue to value ties to their parents despite physical separation includes Michael C. Rutter, Maternal Deprivation Reassessed ___ (2d ed. 1981); Peggy C. Davis, Use and Abuse of the Power to Sever Family Bonds, 12 NYU Rev. L. Soc. Change 557, 563-72 (1983-1984); Marsha Garrison, Child Welfare Decisionmaking: In Search of the Least Drastic Alternative, 75 Geo. LJ 1745, 1777-86 (1987); Penny Ruff Johnson, Carol Yoken, & Ron Voss, Family Foster Care Placement: The Child's Perspective, 74 Child Welfare 959, 963, 967 (1995) (finding that 56% of 95 children aged 11-14 in foster care between 6 months and 2 years stated they missed their parents most of the time).

81 Jacquelynn A. Moffett, Practice with Black Families in Empowering the Black Family: A Roundtable Discussion with Ann Hartman, James Leigh, Jacquelynn Moffett, Elaine Pinderhughes, Barbara Solomon, and Carol Stack 57, 58 (Sylvia Sims Gray, Ann Hartman, & Ellen S. Saalberg eds. 1985).

82 Id.

83 Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty 8-21 (1997).

84 Dorothy Roberts, The Absent Black Father, in Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in America (Cynthia Daniels ed., 1998).

85 Martha Matthews, Assessing the Impact of Welfare Reform on Child Welfare, ___ Clearinghouse Review ___, ___ (1999).

86 See id. at ___; Mark E. Courtney, The Costs of Child Protection in the Context of Welfare Reform, 8 The Future of Children 88, 95-97 (1998); Kristen Shook, Assessing the Consequences of Welfare Reform for Child Welfare, 2 Poverty Research News ___ (Winter 1998). I discuss welfare reform's impact on poor mothers more fully in Dorothy Roberts, "Welfare's Ban on Poor Motherhood," in Gwendolyn Mink, ed., Whose Welfare? (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, forthcoming 1999).

87 Jason DeParle, A Welfare Plan Justifies Hopes and Some Fear, New York Times, Jan. 15, 1999.

88 Matthews, supra note ___, at ___.

89 GOP Welfare Plan Would Take Cash from Unwed Mothers to Aid Adoptions, Chicago Tribune, Nov, 14, 1994, p. A7. A7.

90 Rob Green and Shelley Waters, The Impact of Welfare Reform on Child Welfare Financing ___ (Urban Institute, 1998).

91 Matthews, supra note ___, at ___. Kinship caregivers may also qualify for federal or state foster care benefits and may receive a "child only" TANF grant that does not entail compliance with welfare-to-work requirements. Id. Id. at ___.

92 Green & Waters, supra note ___, at ___; Mark Hardin, Sizing Up Welfare Reform's Impact on Child Protection, 15 Child L. Prac. 104 (1996).

93 States may elect to extend this limit up to 180 days and may exempt families that are working toward reunification. 42 USC S 602( 1)( 10).

94 Matthews, supra note ___, at ___.

95 See The Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, 42 USC S 5115a (prohibiting
agencies receiving federal funding from placing children according to race); 42 USC 1996b
(prohibiting agencies receiving federal funding from denying anyone the opportunity to become an
adoptive or foster parent from delaying or denying the placement of a child on the basis of race).

96 Bartholet, Family Bonds, supra note ___.

97 Garrison, Parents' Rights vs. Children's Rights, 376, citing Alfred Kadushin & Judith Martin, Child Welfare Services 535-40 (4 th ed. 1988).

98 Id.

99 Amanda Spake, Adoption Gridlock, US News & World Rep., June 22, 1998, at ____.

100 Bonnie Miller Rubin & Robert Becker, Will Clout Decide Battle for "Baby T"?: Powerful Burkes Contend with Mother for Custody, Chi. Tri., June 7, 1998, News, at 1.

101 See, eg, Robert Becker & Bonnie Miller, Burkes Lose Key Adoption Supporter; Public Guardian Backs Mother, Blasts DCFS in Custody Dispute, Chi. Tribune, Oct. 3, 1998, at 1; Robert Becker and Bonnie Miller Rubin, Mom Could Win Battle but Lose War, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 26, 1998, at 1; Bonnie Miller Rubin & Robert Becker (with Gary Washburn contibuting), Baby T's Mom Ruled Fit in Fight for Toddler; Judge Rejects State's Case, All but
Dooming Burkes' Adoption Bid, Chi. Tribune, Nov. 5, 1998, at 1.

102 Bartholet, Family Bonds, supra note ___, at ___.

103 [Cite CLS sources]

104 $ 104 (3).

105 143 Cong. Rec. Rec. S12668-03, S12672.

106 The Clinton Administration opposed this provision of ASFA out of concern that it gives foster parents standing that is "incongruent with their role as temporary caregivers of children" and "could result in the creation of unnecessary adversarial relationships between foster parents and biological parents and/ or between foster parents and the State child welfare agency." Prepared Testimony of Olivia A. Golden, Administration for Children and Families, US Dep't Health & Human Servs., before House Comm. on Ways & Means , Subcomm. On Human Resources (April 8, 1997).

107 See Robin West, Law and Fancy, 95 Mich. L. Rev. 1851, 1857-65 (1997) (reviewing Martha C. Nussbaum, Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (1995) (arguing that empathy toward the suffering of one individual may blind us to competing collective interests); Dorothy E. Roberts, Sources of Commitment to Social Justice, 4 Roger Williams UL Rev. 175, 193 (1998) (arguing that "[ e] mpathy does not guarantee that our emotions will lead us to act in an ethical or just way").

108 See Garrison, Parents' Rights vs. Children's Interests, supra note ___, at 394 (arguing that adoption's powerful symbolism of rebirth obscures the emotional need of foster children to maintain connection with their biological parents).

109 Id. at 395.

110 I elaborate this argument in Dorothy E. Roberts, Why Race Matters to Child Welfare Interventions (unpublished paper written for Center for Families in an Open Society, NYU Law School).