life, love & laundry
FACE? FFO(A)? What are all those acronyms?
So if you are an adoptive or prospective adoptive parent you may have heard these acronyms thrown around recently in relation to some new legislation being proposed that hopes to alter international adoptions in various ways.
FACE act: Foreign Adopted Children Equality act
FFOA: Families for Orphans act
It may seem odd or confusing that often when referring to this legislation, it’s referred to collectively. That makes understanding each individual bill more difficult and understanding the history behind both even more confusing. It is understandable why this is happening. Both bills were introduced by the same sponsors at the same general time. Both bills are being actively supported by this newly formed group called the Families for Orphans Coalition.
But as a point of distinction, they are not the same bill and they do not necessarily draw the same supporters. An example of this is that JCICS, who has pushed the FFOA, is not supporting the FACE act. Curious, right? Likewise member agencies within JCICS are not unanimously supporting either FFOA or FACE. There are agencies who oppose one or both, some more vocal than others.
You may have seen various “Calls to Action” in support of this legislation and maybe not so much opposition yet. That isn’t because the bills will go unopposed. It’s because the bills were written in secrecy and the various supportive efforts put in place to drive this bills through committee where all carefully planned before the legislation was ever released to the public.
Most people really want to read and understand legislation before we commit to support or oppose it. We have needed a little while to digest the information and read through the political sweet talk to understand better any potential short and long term consequences of supporting such legislation. People who write bills are hoping, though, that you will not read or try to understand the legislation. They are preying on the age-old blind faith adoptive parents often put in the adoption agencies who stand behind this legislation (despite that fact that some agencies are also blindly supporting, without fully digesting, the information contained within the bills). They are hoping that, because they say so, you will blindly believe this is good legislation and will blindly call your various politicians to blindly ask that they support this legislation. And they, many who are ignorant of issues in adoption (and plan to stay that way) just tally the ‘pro’ calls against the ‘anti calls’ and aren’t properly educated on what exactly it is they are dealing with, either.
Us adoptive parents are not so stupid though. We know how to research! We had to research adoption as an option, we had to research agencies, we had to research country programs. We owe it to ourselves and the future of international adoption to not stop now. Let’s keep researching. Let’s put the kabash on the rush to blindly support legislation that could, in effect, seriously harm international adoption in a variety of different ways.
I have read both pieces of legislation in full. I have also read the benefits, as outlined by supporting orgs. I oppose both pieces of legislation, as written. At some point in the near future I am going to write a separate post outlining the areas of each bill that concern me the most along with any potential areas that I can support. Meanwhile you can start your own research process by reading the bill text:
FACE: house version | senate version
FFOA: house version | senate version
As the days tick on and more thought it put into deciphering the implications of these bills, more and more people are deciding that they can not support one or both of them. These people include adoptees, adoptive parents, highly respected adoption agencies and even, as I mentioned, JCICS. Here are some of the statements and blog posts that are coming out against this legislation.
- Ethica’s position on pending legislation
- VVAI: Fighting for Orphans
- Our Valentines Day Treat: Love & Responsibility
- Coming to America (and other legislative stuff)
- Harlow’s Monkey
- Adoptive Parents Beware
- Jane’s Blog
- Facebook: FACE the truth: Say NO to FACE
- Facebook: Preserve, Promote & Protect Families: Say no to FFOA
If you find yourself unable to support this legislation, I hope you will not just ignore it but will pick up the phone or rattle off an email to let your politicians know. I hope you will blog about it, talk about it on email lists and message boards and engage in intelligent dialogue that will help explore this legislation on a deeper level. We owe it to the future of international adoption.
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I also have serious issues with both bills – and, I’ve been writing up something about it for the blog (though I’ve only read the Senate versions), but me and blogging are having a hard time getting along the last few months so I have no idea if it’ll ever see the light of the internet.
Looking forward to your thoughts on it.
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Why is this site only showing opposition to the above mentioned bills?
The one thing that the bill does is create equality for the adopted children in the eyes of the law – affords the adopted children as a “natural born citizen of the US.” This protects the child (which may be an adult now) from protections, such as, deportation. Those that have already been deported have an opportunity to come back to “thier” country from places they have been sent back to – places they have no idea about.
As for some of the other issues – no one can erase a persons heritage, race or background. Retroactive does not mean erasing of anything.
Anways, there are many that support one or both of the above mentioned bills, so please post links in favor, rather than show bias toward the opposition.
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Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 12:19 am
@David, this is my personal blog so I’m allowed to show whatever bias I like. I’m not a journalist, I have no requirement to favor neutrality. With the incredible jump start those in favor of this bill have had, I’m not feeling sympathetic. There’s plenty of pro-bill info regurgitated out there if folks want to find it.
To respond to your points though:
1) FACE does not automatically afford current adult adoptees anything. They would still be required to apply (and could be turned down) for citizenship. Likewise, the laws in some countries of origin would make it so this bill may actually remove dual citizenship. Further, it would also not even apply to the huge number of children whose adoptions are not complete in their original countries and who must still, then, reapply (but with even greater red tape than they now face) in their home state.
2) it’s absolutely true that inventing a history for a child erases their history. How must it feel to be an older child who has lived and known their country of origin – and many times their family of origin – for all of their years to suddenly know that their history was being rewritten to make it seem as if they were born to different (white, American) parents? It’s false. Many adult adoptees are absolutely against this bill for those reasons. Those who do not understand this might benefit from taking a few big steps back and trying to understand the issue from an adult adoptee standpoint rather than demanding that their feelings are invalid or wrong.
This bill might have more universal appeal if it were simply designed to make the path to citizenship easier by allowing citizenship (without the retroactivity) at the time of the adoption.
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