Senate stalls KY adoption reform bill

Adoption reform appears dead
Lexington Herald-Leader, March 13, 2007, pg. C2.

The Senate sent a bill involving adoption reform back to committee last night, most likely killing the measure. Asked whether the proposal was dead, Senate Health and Welfare Chairman Julie Denton, R-Louisville, said, "It appears to be."

The move makes the bill's passage unlikely because, with only two days remaining in this legislative session, the committee will not have time to deal with it. As revised by the House, Senate Bill 141 would have created for a panel of top state child protection officials to review every recommendation to terminate parental rights.

State officials have spent the last year investigating complaints that children are inappropriately removed from their biological parents and placed in foster care to facilitate state adoptions.