Foster Children in Jewish and Pennsylvania Law

Excerpts from the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (H.R. 867)

SEC. 101. CLARIFICATION OF THE REASONABLE EFFORTS REQUIREMENT

(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 471(a)(15) of the Social Security Act

(42 U.S.C. 671(a)(15)) is amended to read as follows:

‘‘(15) provides that—

‘‘(A) in determining reasonable efforts to be made with

respect to a child, as described in this paragraph, and

in making such reasonable efforts, the child’s health and

safety shall be the paramount concern;

‘‘(B) except as provided in subparagraph (D), reason-

able efforts shall be made to preserve and reunify

‘‘(i) prior to the placement of a child in foster

care, to prevent or eliminate the need for removing

the child from the child’s home; and

‘‘(ii) to make it possible for a child to safely return

to the child’s home;

‘‘(C) if continuation of reasonable efforts of the type

described in subparagraph (B) is determined to be

inconsistent with the permanency plan for the child,

reasonable efforts shall be made to place the child in a

timely manner in accordance with the permanency plan,

and to complete whatever steps are the permanent placement of the child;

SEC. 103. STATES REQUIRED TO INITIATE OR JOIN PROCEEDINGS TO

TERMINATE PARENTAL RIGHTS FOR CERTAIN CHILDREN

IN FOSTER CARE.

‘‘(E) in the case of a child who has been in foster

care under the responsibility of the State for 15 of the

most recent 22 months, or, if a court of competent jurisdic-

tion has determined a child to be an abandoned infant

(as defined under State law) or has made a determination

that the parent has committed murder of another child

of the parent, committed voluntary manslaughter of

another child of the parent, aided or abetted, attempted,

conspired, or solicited to commit such a murder or such

a voluntary manslaughter, or committed a felony assault

that has resulted in serious bodily injury to the child or

to another child of the parent, the State shall file a petition

to terminate the parental rights of the child’s parents (or,

if such a petition has been filed by another party, seek

to be joined as a party to the petition), and, concurrently,

to identify, recruit, process, and approve a qualified family

for an adoption, unless—

‘‘(i) at the option of the State, the child is being

cared for by a relative;

‘‘(ii) a State agency has documented in the case

plan (which shall be available for court review) a

compelling reason for determining that filing such a

petition would not be in the best interests of the child;

‘‘(iii) the State has not provided to the family of

the child, consistent with the time period in the State

case plan, such services as the State deems necessary

for the safe return of the child to the child’s home,

if reasonable efforts of the type described in section

471(a)(15)(B)(ii) are required to be made with respect

to the child.’’.

From The Lost Children of Wilder by Nina Bernstein

What [Justine Wise Polier, daughter of Stephen S. Wise] called her “first baptism by religious fire” came in 1936, when four neglected children of a mixed marriage were brought before her for placement. The Catholic mother and Muslim father had been married by a Protestant minister. “During one of their many quarrels,” Polier wrote later, “the mother had the oldest boy baptized in the Catholic Church without the knowledge of the father. When a daughter was born, the father retaliated by having her initiated into Islam against the mother’s wishes. Having thus punished each other, neither parent had done anything about the religion of the next two children. None of the four children had received any religious education. The case was brought by Catholic and Protestant institutions to whom the children had been allocated [after their mother fell ill]. Religious baptism became the central issue.” The oldest boy, a tall and swarthy fifteen-year-old, had run away three times from the Catholic institution, insisting he wanted to be a Muslim like his father. The thirteen-year-old girl, blond and blue-eyed like her mother, said she feared her father and wanted to be Catholic. Because of the father’s violent objections to a Catholic placement, the three younger children were in a Protestant institution, but the father was threatening to blow up the church to which they were being sent. After a full investigation, Polier came to a Solomonic decision. The older boy would be placed, as he wished, with a caring paternal uncle who was Muslim. The three younger children would be kept together and placed in a Protestant foster home where they were to receive no religious instruction. The mother would be permitted to take her older daughter with her to the Catholic church, while the father could take the younger children to Muslim services. The judge wrote a detailed opinion, In re Vardinakis, holding that infant baptism did not make a child the property of any church, and that no interests were entitled to consideration except those of parents and children. The outraged response was captured by a sensational headline in the Brooklyn Tablet, a tabloid published by the Brooklyn Diocese: DAUGHTER OF RABBI WISE GIVES CHILD OF CHRIST TO THE BLACK BEARDED PROPHET OF MOHAMMED. Later a Catholic judge telephoned Polier at home to say that Patrick Cardinal Hayes was deeply troubled by her decision.