Thursday, September 18, 2008

House Approves Biggest Adoption Incentives Bill Since 1997, Heads to Senate

From
http://www.lifenews.com/nat4323.html


House Approves Biggest Adoption Incentives Bill Since 1997, Heads to Senate

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor

September 17, 2008
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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved the largest adoption incentives bill since 1997. The measure is needed because abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood do little to encourage pregnant women to consider adoption when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.
The House-passed bill renews and expands adoption incentives and the Senate is expected to take up the measure and approve it within days.
The final bill includes parts of the measure pro-life Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa has spearheaded in the Senate and part of the House's own version that it previously approved in June.
Under the legislation, the amount of money states would receive for promoting and completing certain adoptions would double.

Any state that increases the number of adoptions of special-needs children to a record high level would receive $4,000 per adoption, up from $2,000 currently. The same process would occur for states boosting the number of adoptions of older children, above the age of 9.
The bill also establishes “Family Connection Grants” to help families who facilitate the adoptions of foster children with blood relatives such as grandparents or aunts and uncles.
The current adoption incentives expire on September 30, so Congress is trying to complete the bill and get it to President Bush, who will likely sign the measure into law.

The bill is important because the number of adoptions in the United States is on the decline.
An August report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics shows that adoption is a rare event that is becoming less and less frequent.It found that adoption numbers and the desire to adopt have declined over the last 30 years since Roe. In 2000, of the 65.6 million children under 18 years of age, only 2.5 percent were adopted.
Planned Parenthood, which does 25 percent of the abortions nationwide, counsels fewer women about adoption now than ever before.

The number of Planned Parenthood adoption referrals is also miniscule and continues to drop, according to the new annual report it released in April. The previous annual report showed a scant 2,413 referrals and the abortion business made three less in the last fiscal year.
The adoption and prenatal numbers are also surprising given the increase in the total number of clients at Planned Parenthood. The pro-abortion group had 3.14 million customers in 2006-2007, which represented a 2.5 percent increase or almost 80,000 more customers than the year prior.

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