[British Columbia) parents only the unwed mother's permission is required. In two or three cases, Leavitt, said, the natural mother travelled to B.C. to give birth just to avoid legal battles in California."

The article stated, "B.C. is a safe place for them (the birthmothers) to have their children adopted," said Mr. Leavitt.

There is even one fellow, Richard Gitelman, a man who is currently facing trial on a Pennsylvania arrest warrant, who is at this moment trying to set up an operation in the West Indies Island of Monserrat. His reported plan is to fly pregnant women into the island, have them give birth there, then fly them off without their babies and place their babies with couples willing to pay the price.

Beginning in 1972, in Stanley v. State of Illinois (405 U.S. 645), the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that unwed fathers have certain rights. Most agencies press birthmothers to name the fathers for many reasons, including their wish to see that the adoption itself will not be Jeopardized later on by the birthfather challenging the adoption because his rights were not properly terminated. But lawyers such as Mr. Leavitt read the law quite differently. Here is what Mr. Leavitt said in Congressional Quarterly's Dec. 11, 1987, Editorial Research Reports, "Independent Adoptions": "Adoption agencies, according to Leavitt, misunderstood the Stanley ruling and don't realize it has been 'almost totally reversed' by the Lehr decision. The agencies, he says, 'almost invariably insist on dragging the guy in...and start trying to

talk him into hanging around and paying child support and, in effect, discouraging [the mother] from doing what she wants to do, which is...separate from her child so she can get a new life started and know her baby will be safe. These agencies blow their own adoptions out the window. '"

This testimony is already too long and this issue too complex for us to discuss in details some of our other concerns with S. 1976. We

do wish to list these briefly here with the hope of providing greater detail to the Committee in the future. These concerns are:

-S. 1976 would exempt Indian tribal governments from some basic foster care requirements of Title IV-E of the Social Security Act while requiring that the tribes be eligible for Title IV-E money. 201(b) and (c))

(Section

-S. 1976 would create an expensive, bureaucratic and paperwork nightmare for states and private adoption agencies by requiring that states ensure that private agencies be in compliance with the ICWA for state licensing and that private agencies be audited for ICWA compliance by the state on an annual basis. This would require that limited resources needed for child welfare activities be spent

preparing, conducting, and responding to these yearly audits. (Section

115)

-S. 1976's requirements for compliance thoughout the bill ignore

-S. 1976 would require that all records, reports, or other documents be provided by an adoption agency to the tribe. This will include even confidential agency documents that are not filed as part of the court proceedings. (Section 102(c))

-5. 1976 expands the definition of "Indian tribe" to include Canadian Indians which may cause greater delay and bureaucratic obstacles to the placement of children of Native American descent. (Section 4(9))

-S. 1976 fails to specify the role of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children in relation to tribal governments.

-S. 1976 fails to allow for confidentiality of any party to an adoption, including birthparents and adoptive parents, even when these parties so desire. Section 301(a), for example, requires that all identifying information automatically be given to the tribe by the

state court.

-S. 1976 nowhere addresses the child's right to permanency and to a

family.

-S. 1976 all but requires that adoptions of children covered by the ICWA be "open adoptions," adoptions that are at best experimental and which many parties would not consider adoption at all but rather a form of extended foster care. (Section 102(h))

To conclude,

we wish to thank the Select Committee for inviting

us here to share our views regarding the workings of the current Indian Child Welfare Act and the proposed amendments in S.-1976. When the ICWA was enacted in 1978 it represented a major attempt to recognize and involve the sovereign Indian governments in child welfare proceedings concerning Indian children. We do believe that the ICWA was a progressive development, one that was necessary due to the unique U.S. Indian relationship. That we are here today highlighting some inadvertent effects of the ICWA and calling for some amendments to the ICWA should not be seen as a condemnation of the ICWA. After ten years of experience, it is to be expected that improvements in the Act would be necessary. As is clear from our comments we do not believe that the improvements are to be found in the direction taken by S. 1976. We do hope however that the Select Committee will examine the iss.es that we have raised and take action to address them in order to make the ICWA a law that indeed works for Indian children and their parents.

TESTIMONY ON S. 1976,

AMENDMENTS TO THE "INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ACT OF 1978"

MAY 11, 1988

BEFORE THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

Submitted by:

Cindy Darcy and Mary Parks, Friends Committee on National Legislation

Owanah Anderson, Staff Officer, Native American Ministries, Episcopal Church

Elwyn Ewald, Executive Director, and Allogan Slagle, Assistant Executive Director, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Office for Governmental

Affairs