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Adoption Reform Needs to happen to protect the children who are adopted. Unethical
adoptions are another form of child trafficking, and needs to be outlawed. There needs
to be a change of both state and national laws, protecting families from scams, coercion,
and other unethical practices.
Although not required by law, the better practice is to always insist that the birth parents
have an attorney separate from the attorney representing the adoptive parents. Ethics rules
prevent one attorney from representing both sides in an adoption. To proceed with only one
attorney and assert that the attorney only represents the adoptive parents is a dangerous fiction.
Someone needs to explain the process to the birth parents and advise them of their rights. If the
person giving the advice is the attorney who represents the adoptive parents, a potentially fatal
defect has been built into the adoption. Under those circumstances, a birth parent could seek to
overturn the adoption long after the placement based upon duress relating to the attorney's
conflict of interest.
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