Birth moms could get aid under bill: Ohio loses out on adoptions over living-expenses ban, some say

May 25, 2008 (The Columbus Dispatch - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- She is 18 and pregnant, with no money and no place to live. A nice couple plans to adopt the child, but they can do nothing to ease her current crisis.

Adoption attorney Mary Catherine Barrett said the parents-to-be are incredulous.

"They said, 'She's going to give us a baby, but we can't buy her a bag of groceries?' "

Not unless they want to break the law. Ohio, unlike most other states, forbids any payment of living expenses to the birth mother in a private adoption.

Adoption advocates have long decried the strict statute, which they say pushes pregnant girls and women to give their babies to families in states that allow temporary financial help.

"It is a birth-mom and a baby drain, and it means Ohio couples are losing babies," said Thomas Taneff, a Columbus adoption lawyer.

A bill passed last week by the Ohio House of Representatives would remove the living-expenses ban, allowing court-approved payments of up to $3,000 during the pregnancy and for two months after the birth. The measure moves to the Senate.

"Why is this important? It's simple," Taneff said. "Probably 25 or 30 percent of our birth moms are adopting out-of-state. This bill will help keep Ohio babies here for Ohio couples."

One of his clients, a Columbus-area woman named Caitlin, said she placed her newborn with a couple from Missouri because she faced losing her home. Only first names are being used in this story to preserve the privacy of the adoptions.

When Caitlin unexpectedly became pregnant at 21, she said, she and her new husband had little money and no health insurance, and were working through conflicting religious views between their families: She was raised Mormon; her husband, Jewish.

They didn't think they were ready to provide for a child. "We didn't know what we were doing," she said. "But I would never have an abortion; that was never an option for me."

The adoptive family paid Caitlin about $4,000, which she said she used for groceries, utilities and mortgage payments.

Ohio already allows for payment of medical, legal and some counseling fees for the birth mother, but nothing to help in the event she cannot work and wants help with rent, food and clothing.

The intent of the law obviously was to prevent "baby-selling," said Denise St. Clair, executive director of the National Center for Adoption Law and Policy at Capital University.

Views have changed over the years, as advocates say it's possible to help birth mothers and still maintain enough court oversight to prevent adoptions from becoming sales or to tip the scales too much toward wealthy adoptive families.

"The philosophy for allowing these kinds of expenses is that the birth mother should not suffer, but neither should she profit," St. Clair said. "I think this does create some equity among the states that was missing before."

Brandi, a Cleveland woman who also sent her baby out of state, said she chose a New Jersey couple. She had no job or place of her own and already had two children when she found out she was pregnant.

"I had to move back in with my mom," said Brandi, who, like Caitlin, did not want her last name used.

The adoptive couple paid about $5,000 in living expenses, which Brandi used to reimburse her mother, she said. "With an Ohio adoption, I would not have gotten any help."

Barrett, whose law practice is based in northeastern Ohio, said she recently found a place for the pregnant 18-year-old to stay. Just as Ohio adoptive families cannot help with living expenses, neither can attorneys in the case.

"A lady offered up a couch, and we're in a situation where we needed it," Barrett said. "And I had to call the judge to get permission for that."

rprice@dispatch.com

Ohio's House passed a bill to allow court-approved payments totaling $3,000 during the pregnancy and for two months after the birth.

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