RAISING CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT ADOPTION.(Brief Article)

One would think that adoption would be right up there (so to speak) with motherhood and apple pie. After all, who can be against facilitating arrangements whereby kids who are in need can be matched up with adoptive parents who would love to bring them into their homes?

Well, some do, and often numbered among their ranks is the pro-abortion set. While rarely hammering adoption outright, they will tinge even their (at best) neutral responses with the equivalent of a raised eyebrow. And that may be because in so many instances the birth mother may be unmarried and ambivalent about what path to take.

It's as if the pro-abortion types view adoption as a competitor rather than what ought to be a win-win alternative. Planned Parenthood, which bills itself as a full-service provider, aborted 61 babies for every one adoption referral it made in 1999. (And even as Planned Parenthood continued to raise its abortion profile, the number of its adoption referrals from 1998 to 1999 declined by 39%.)

In many prior administrations, it was clear that promoting adoption was not a high priority. As you would expect from the administration of pro-life President George W. Bush, this is changing.

Reprinted below is the press release sent out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) October 16. Its emphasis is providing federal dollars to train health care workers at federally funded health centers and clinics so that they can help raise the consciousness of pregnant women to the adoption option.

The Department of Health and Human Services consulted with some 29 experts in a number of fields to come up with what HHS describes as "a set of best-practice guidelines for the grantees to follow when providing this training." This demonstrates a welcomed seriousness about making adoption a real-life option.

No doubt the $8.6 million in grants for this new program will be put to good use by such organizations as the National Council for Adoption. This is good news for everyone.