not be opened to anyone except with the permission of the agency or upon "order".

The provisions of section 505 should require the agency to transmit any information subsequent to the adoption received by the agency to the court for placement in its records.

Part (c) of Section 505 should be eliminated.

Section 601 (b). Although the concepts are sound the section is badly drafted and should be clarified.

Section 602. The Department of HEW has a current contract to draft

a Model Licensing Law. There also exist more complete laws in individual states than this proposed section. We recommend that Section 602 (a) and (b) be retained but that the rest of the section be dropped and further publication await the fulfullment of the current HEW contract. Section 603 (a). Delete everything after "under contract to an

agency". For reasons see our comments on Section 204.

Section 604. We believe the drafters intended to refer to Section

205 (a), not 204 (a). If that is not the case we object to this section. It should only apply to special needs children adoptive applicants.

(A) (2). No appeals should be permitted on applications for infants, unless applicants have been rejected for cause.

(D).

An appeal period of 60 days would be injurious to the child under (A) (5). An agency should give written notice of its intent to remove the child from a home. No more than five days should be permitted to file an appeal.

TITLE VII

The commentary on this section is deficient. A better commentary is that of the Model State Adoption Subsidy Act promulgated by HEW in 1975. We recommend its substitution.

the voluntary termination of his parental
rights with respect to the child;

that failure to act in accordance with the requirements
of subsection (6) hereof shall constitute grounds for
the involuntary termination of parental rights with
respect to the child, and that the [ ] court will

proceed to terminate the parental rights of the putative
father without further notice to him.

THIS IS THE MATERIAL MISSING FROM YOUR COPY OF THE MODEL ACT. THIS TEXT
IS A CONTINUATION OF SECTION 308(c). AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE
FEDERAL REGISTER REPRINT, THIS MATERIAL WAS NOT PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL
REGISTER AND THUS IS NOT PUBLISHED ANYWHERE FOR PUBLIC REVIEW OR COMMENT.

2.

3.

4.

Birth parents are to be put in contact with other birth
parents who kept their children. Again, there is no stipu-
lation requiring them to be put in contact with birth
parents who successfully placed their children for adoption.
(Sec. Services to Birth Parents Prior to Placement).

The birth father, specifically, must receive written information regarding alternatives to adoption, but not to the benefits of adoption. The law fails to note that in a very large number of cases, particularly in regard to very young birth parents, this is an almost totally unrealistic provision. (Sec. Services to Birth Parents Prior to Placement).

The law prohibits the social worker who counseled the birth
parent from taking that parent's relinquishment, thus
increasing the psychological difficulty of signing the
release and greatly jeopardizing the well being of the child
who, unfortunately, may not be released for adoption. (Sec. 303).

The Model Act consistently misinterprets the finality of the termination of parental rights. Termination as defined in Webster's Dictionary Unabridged Second Edition is "the end of something in space or time, limit, bound, conclusion, or finish".

Provisions such as that contained in (Section 307.b) which allows the birth parent to regain custody of the child if the child has not been successfully placed for adoption within one year of the termination, reflects a misinterpretation of the reality of adoption. If parental rights have been validly terminated then the birth parent has no further legal claim to the child. To contend otherwise is to reduce adoption to a kind of long-term foster care which, as the Act itself maintains is never in the best interests of a child.

Traditionally, the private voluntary agency has been an excellent agent for services to the single parent, to the child needing adoption, and to couples wanting to adopt. Agencies have rendered their services freely, always seeking to act in the best. interest of the child. During the past ten years agencies have been beset with problems relating to the availability of children for adoption. This situation has been precipitated by an increase in the number of single parents who are electing to keep their babies and by the greater accessibility of abortion clinics. In addition to these obvious reasons, some children's rights to a permanent adoption home have been hampered by laws which allow unfit parents to retain their parental rights even when extreme neglect and/or abuse are clearly evident. Foster homes and institutions are filled with such youngsters who have little hope to attain a permanent loving family situation. Unfortunately, the Model Act does not address this problem in any manner whatsoever.

While it is obvious that in the practice of adoption in the United States that placements by attorneys and physicians and other interested