Fingerprints & Criminal Background Checks

I said I would blog about our adoption process back in January. Well it is now April and I have had only a few posts regarding this which indicates the pace of this process. Today I am going through some papers that need to be filled out and mailed in. One is a release form for fingerprinting, the other is a form we will send to FBI headquarters with our fingerprints on it. Did you know that there is an "adoption unit" at the FBI office in West Virginia? You learn something everyday!

I have so many feelings right now about our home study. Mostly I feel like adoption is much too slow a process and thus begin to question the path we are taking. Should we be working with a different agency? Should we work with several agencies in different states so that we might have more options? What about international adoptions? Should we investigate that path as well? And where do you find the money for that??

It is amazing what adoptive parents must go through to have a child. Yet it seems any idiot can get pregnant (did I say that out loud?). Truly there are crazy people having babies! There are babies (teens) having babies, crack addicts having babies. And because they are the "birth" mother they have rights that seem to exceed reason. Just because you can have sex, get pregnant and have a baby does not mean you will be a good mother. It doesn't mean you are ready to have a family. However you can.

There is a bill going to the Senate right now that a friend emailed me about. It is called HR-20. This bill would possibly require new mothers to be screened by means of a list of subjective questions to determine if the mother is mentally fit to take their newborn home from the hospital. Now I know my friend sent this to me thinking I would want to join with her in opposing this bill. However as a woman without children and going through the adoption process, I liked the idea of having new mothers screened to see if they are "fit" to take a baby home. If I have to go through a FBI screening why shouldn't birth mothers go through a similar process to see if they are capable of caring for a child. Again, and this is my opinion, just because you can get pregnant and birth a baby doesn't mean you are automatically a good candidate to be a mother.

I know there are probably so many things wrong with having a bill like the HR-20 Mother's Act. I am usually not one who supports anything that infringes on any of our constitutional rights. But from my perspective it sounds kind of fair in light of all the screening adoptive parents go through. Let's make sure women are responsible people before going home with their babies. And in the mean time why don't we also make it easier for responsible people to adopt. Seems reasonable to me.