Caroline Zito

Honors English II
Opening Speech

We are here today to fight for stronger adoption laws. I think both sides can
agree that we are trying to determine what is best for the child. However, as the
affirmative, we are arguing that, in the best interest of the child, adoption laws
should be stronger.
Currently, parents backgrounds are checked as well as their income,
employment and home. Adoption candidates are required to go through child abuse
checks and fingerprinting as well. They have to get letters from friends saying that
they are good prospective parents, and letters from a doctor saying that they are
healthy enough to raise a child.
In a private adoption where there is no agency involved, the prospective
adoptive parents have to go through the same checks, but they are not checked until
after the baby has been place with them by the birth mother. I believe that this
should change. If the parents are not qualified enough to have a child, that should be
decided before the baby has been placed with them. Otherwise, this could cause
stress and other issues for the child.
Another major area where adoption laws sould be strengthened is the area of
foster care. In New Jersey, DYFS (the Division of Youth and Family Services) will
usually place a child into foster care. When this happens, the child is placed into a
family that has already been checked by the state. The problem with this, however,
is that the child can form strong bonds with the family. If, for some reason, the state
needed to take the child away from said family, it could be traumatic for the child
and the foster family as well. Adoption agent Liz Hopkins notified me about a case
this week in which a foster family who has had a 15 month old child in their home
since that child was born. This family is the only family that this child has ever
known and the foster family wishes to adopt him. DYFS is now trying to pull the
child from the foster home in order to put him in the home of a distant relative of
the birth mother. I think that that is extremely wrong. If DYFS is trying to act in the
best interest of the child, as they state that they are, why would they pull the child
out of a foster family where it is being taken care of? Although I understand that
DYFS likes to place children with relatives, if possible, there should be a time limit
on that. In this case the State waited much too long and it would be detrimental to
the child's mental well being to take him from the only parents that he has ever
known. Unfortunately, the State does this time and time again, and I believe that
this needs to be corrected.
These are the main areas of adoption that I think should be corrected. It is
not fair for the family, and it is certainly not in the best interest of the child. I hope
you take the time to look at these points and imagine yourself in an adoptive parent
or childs shoes, and think about how they would feel.