The Uniform Adoption Act

The Spring 1993 issue of The Future of Children focused on adoption. Guest Editor Dr. Irving Schulman and the Center staff emphasized the significant societal as well as private benefits of adoption, especially for children in need of permanent families, and called for careful consideration of policies intended to remove persistent and unreasonable barriers to adoption. In an article which appeared in that issue, Joan Hollinger discussed how a complex regulatory system, as well as the lack of consensus about the functions served by adoption, produces uncertainty on issues as basic as determining who are the "parents" whose consent is required for adoption, evaluating the suitability of prospective adoptive parents for different kinds of children, deciding how much information must or may be shared between birth and adoptive families, and distinguishing between lawful placement activities and illegal "baby-selling." Hollinger and the Center staff recommended passage of more uniform state adoption laws to facilitate adoption while adequately protecting the interests of all parties. This article describes the proposed Uniform Adoption Act (UAA) promulgated in 1994 by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and discusses the likelihood of its enactment by the states.