National Adoption Month

Floor Speech

NATIONAL ADOPTION MONTH -- (Senate - November 16, 2009)

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I rise today to voice my support for National Adoption Month and the efforts of those individuals who play a role in foster care and the adoption process.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 51,000 children are adopted in the United States of America each year. This is an encouraging figure and a strong testament to the efficacy of child welfare workers and foster care families around the country. However, this month also provides us with an opportunity to look at the more sobering side of this issue.

Currently, more than 130,000 children await adoption in the United States. This figure represents children who do not yet know the safety and security of loving parents or a home to call their own. This is a dilemma about which we must raise awareness and for which we must find solutions.

As a father myself, I can speak for the sacrifices that most parents willingly make for the well-being of their children. I therefore deeply admire and respect those who make these sacrifices for children who are not their own by birth by providing foster homes or by seeking to adopt.

Many adoptive parents have fought their way through significant obstacles in the legal process in order to adopt, and all have taken risks and made sacrifices in their own lives to create a family where none has been before.

The theme of this year's effort to raise awareness about the adoption of children and youth from foster care, ``You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent,'' should help serve as a reminder that, although many would-be adoptive parents feel unequal to the job, they have a great deal to offer these children.

There are many ways to adopt, whether through the public foster care system, domestic adoption through private agencies within the United States, or intercountry adoption, to name a few, and numerous adoption agencies and workers stand ready to assist in the process.

As a Senator, I have seen the statistics of those children for whom no home was made, for whom no parent stepped up to the hard but rewarding job of parenting, and while there are encouraging exceptions, figures make it very clear that society has found no replacement for a stable home and loving parents.

Thus, it is both for the sake of these children and for the welfare of our Nation that I encourage adoption as a way to enhance one's own life and the society in which we all live. As I have said in the past, the act of adoption itself represents the value that Americans place on the worth of each human life, and it is throughout this particular month of the year that we take time to reaffirm this sacrificial and rewarding act.

Source