US: Federal Adoption Law Leads States To Prematurely Separate Families (Includes video)
Reason – January 03, 2023
Between 2015 and 2019, parents of roughly 327,000 children across the country saw their parental rights terminated. In 20 percent of those cases, parents lost their rights less than a year after their child was first seized and taken into state custody. According to one recent study, the rate of parental rights termination has increased, with the likelihood that a child will experience this kind of separation roughly doubling between 2000 and 2016. While the opioid crisis is a driving force in the increase in parental terminations, a 1997 law is making matters much worse-giving states direct financial incentives to increase the number of adoptions from foster care and giving biological parents less time and less leeway to prove they should keep their own children.
https://reason.com/2023/01/03/federal-adoption-law-leads-states-to-prematurely-separate-families/