National Adoption Month

NATIONAL ADOPTION MONTH

Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed immediately to the consideration of S. Res. 474, submitted earlier today by myself, Senator Craig, Senator Bond, as well as Senator DeWine, Senator Fitzgerald, Senator Levin, Senators SANTORUM and STABENOW-those last names be added as cosponsors to the resolution.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk will report the resolution by title.

The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A resolution (S. Res. 474) to express support for the goals of National Adoption Month by promoting national awareness of adoption, celebrating children and families involved in adoption, and encouraging Americans to secure safety, permanency, and well-being for all children.

There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I yield to my friend who cosponsored this resolution for his remarks prior to mine.

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Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am pleased and proud to join my colleague from Idaho. I have the opportunity this morning before this body to thank him for his extraordinary leadership on this issue and his tireless efforts. Despite all of the responsibilities he has as a leader of the majority party and all of the other issues that he leads, he always finds time for this issue. It is not an issue that has a lot of paid lobbyists associated with it because this is a coalition that is actually advocating on behalf of orphans. His leadership is particularly noted, and we are grateful for all the work that our Senators do for children, not only in our country but around the world.

While we do celebrate this month and recognize this month of November and mark this time noting our great progress and success, let me begin by saying, unfortunately, the number of orphans in the world is on the rise. Some experts predict an unprecedented number of orphans in the world-really in numbers not ever known by the world before. We have had world wars in the past that have caused the number of orphans to expand greatly, but in the midst of this century and this time not only do we have war and famine, but we have something the world has never seen before, and that is the epidemic of AIDS that is an orphan factory in Africa and India.

We come to the floor today to celebrate what successes we have achieved in the United States, and we will talk about those successes in a moment. The challenge is great. I look forward to working with Senator Craig and all Members of the Senate as we try to form a leadership team for the world to address this unprecedented number of orphans.

If I could just say one more word about AIDS, sometimes children are orphaned because a parent dies of heart disease or cancer, but those diseases usually just affect one parent, not two. Because of the nature of AIDS and the way this disease is transmitted, it actually works at killing parents in usually a quick amount of time, leaving children in the international community not single orphans but double orphans. So that is quite a challenge to the world.

Let me switch to a happy note. In America last year 120,000 children found loving and permanent homes, and approximately 12,000 of those children came from other countries to the United States to loving homes in all parts of our country; small towns in Idaho, very small towns in Louisiana, as well as to our larger metropolitan areas. And they were welcomed, of course, with happiness and celebration and have become parts of families. I am proud to say that over 100,000 children were adopted, children from the United States to American families right here at home out of foster care and, of course, infant adoptions as well. That was terrific.

Two million children live in adoptive homes today in our country. More extraordinary and more jolting and impressive is the fact that 6 out of every 10 Americans have been personally touched by adoption; either they themselves were adopted or they have adopted into their family or grandparents have received from their biological family adoptive grandchildren. The stories are endless and wonderful. We need to make sure this Government of ours is doing everything it can to connect children who need families because governments do a great job at many things, but raising children is not one of them. Children need to be raised by parents, preferably two parents, but at least one loving adult that can raise that child to be a contributing member of our society.

Our future truly depends on it. We can have all the great tax policies in the world, great health policies, great education policies, but it is parent to child, that carries future values from one generation to the next. So making these connections is not only a feel-good thing to do, it is a necessary thing to do for the continuation of our great Nation and the world community and family.

Let me share briefly about some of the children waiting in my State. There are 500,000 children in foster care in the United States today. That is tragic. It is tragic and good and I will explain. It is tragic because children have been separated from their parents. Sometimes we could have done a better job of preventing that had we given more drug counseling on substance abuse or stronger educational benefits or job opportunities to those parents. On the positive side, sometimes children have to be separated from their families because, if not, they may literally die at the hands of parents who are not in their right mind and spirit. These children can sometimes be in danger.

While we try to protect, promote and develop a better system, the fact is, 500,000 children are in foster care, anywhere from the age of 1 month up to 21 years old.

These are pictures of some of the children in my State. There are many more. Some are young teens, children who are perfectly healthy, sibling groups. Cynthia is a beautiful child. She was born with cerebral palsy and needs special care and attention. This is a story of one child who gives everyone great inspiration. Children like this with the right love and attention can grow up to be Presidents, mayors of great cities, professors at our great universities. They just need love, attention, and care. That is what National Adoption Month is all about.

Let me in my brief time share a story about an extraordinary young woman who came out of an orphanage. I will tell the story and then show the picture because you will not believe it when I show the picture. I want to tell a story that Senator Craig and I know about that has touched our hearts that we want to share with you today.

A young girl, about 9 years ago, was left in an orphanage in Russia. We do not know too much about the circumstances, but what we know is she was severely disabled when she was born. She had spina bifida. She had a hole in her spine. In some places in the world, children born with disabilities are basically just left to die-even with disabilities that we have come to know in America can be fixed and corrected with good health care. But there are truly dying rooms around the world where infants and young children are born and left to die. They are not fed, they are not taken care of because there is no medicine, no doctors, and nobody can do anything, so they make a tough judgment: to feed the healthy children and leave the sick children to die.

This little girl was left in a dying room. But she would not die, basically. After 6 years of living, with very little support, a woman we know well showed up in one of our adoption agencies and was trying to find children in this orphanage to be adopted. She came across this child who was on the floor because she could not walk. She had no wheelchair but she crawled up and touched her jacket. She looked down at this child's eyes and saw something that obviously no one else had seen and decided to adopt this child. The orphanage kept saying: We don't want you to have this child; we want you to have a "good" child.

She kept saying: This is the child I want. I want this child with a hole in her back, the strong and beautiful little girl.

The long and short of the story is, this woman scoops this child up, brings the child to America, adopts this child as her daughter, and her name is Tatiana McFadden.

I want to show a picture of Tatiana, but no one is going to believe the end of this story. Tatiana represented the United States of America in the Para-Olympics in Greece this year and won the silver medal for our country, for America.

This is a picture of Tatiana, who is now 16 or 17 years old, one of the strongest, most courageous, bravest human beings I have ever met. She proudly carried the American flag over that finish line and won the silver medal in the Para-Olympics.

Senator Craig, my good friend from Idaho, and I hoped she would be our special guest at Angels in Adoption, but she was actually winning the medal as our event was taking place.

In honor of Tatiana McFadden, I wanted to speak for her and for the children she represents in America and around the world. This is Tatiana, receiving on our behalf, for the United States of America, the silver medal. She represents everything that Senator Craig and I want to share today about National Adoption Month.

There are many orphans waiting. They are not damaged goods. These are children who, through no fault of their own, have been separated from their parents for a variety of different reasons. They need and want families. They have a lot to offer not only to themselves but to their countries and their families.

We hope in November, as we gather around our Thanksgiving table, and as our Nation gathers and spends time on its knees thanking God for our many blessings which we have, remembering our blessings from the early founding of this country. As we gather around our tables and hold the hands of our children, let's think about the children who do not have parents and what we can do.

Every Senator can most certainly do something. Many Senators and House Members are doing a great deal.

My colleagues have been very gracious with this time, but I close by saying that tomorrow, on Saturday, many of our colleagues, House and Senate Members, will be participating at their courthouses all over America. We are happy to say that we will have 4,000 children adopted tomorrow, on National Adoption Day, an effort started by one judge, Judge Nash in Los Angeles, CA, who started this to call attention to children like Tatiana. All they need is someone to pick them up, hold them, love them. Basically the spirit that God has put in them will do the rest. That is what this month is about.

I thank my colleague for offering this resolution. I thank the Senators in the midst of their busy work schedule for pushing this resolution through. I thank the President for his great support and acknowledge President Clinton and First Lady Clinton's effort, now Senator Clinton, and President Bush and Mrs. Bush, for their good leadership on this issue-not just in America, as my colleague knows, but as President Bush advocates these policies around the world.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider by laid upon the table, and any statements related thereto be printed in the RECORD without intervening action or debate.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. DOLE). Without objection, it is so ordered.