Pro-choicers, especially the rich and famous ones, have been attacking pro-life bills all over social media, including Alabama’s Human Life Protection Act, which seeks to make abortion and attempted abortion felony offenses. It’s a bill that aims to protect human lives, but abortion advocates are fighting against it using the same old failed argument of “what about the kids in foster care?” Well, Alabama families have a very clear answer to that question.
Governor Kay Ivey announced at the end of 2018 that a record number of children were adopted from foster care in Alabama and placed in forever homes. According to AL.com, the Alabama Department of Human Resources states that there were 710 children adopted from foster care in Alabama in fiscal 2018 (ending September 30) compared to 509 in the fiscal year 2017 and 502 in 2016. The 2018 record of 710 beat the previously held record of 676 back in the fiscal year 2009.
Overall, there are currently about 6,375 children in Alabama’s foster care system. Of those, DHR Commissioner Nancy Buckner said are approximately 70 percent will be reunited with their biological families, which is the goal of foster care.
“But those that don’t, they need their own loving, caring, permanent family and that’s what it’s all about,” she explained. She credited a joint effort of the juvenile courts, probate judges, DHR and other groups with the increase in foster care adoptions.
READ: The many misconceptions about foster care in discussions about abortion
Josh Dapprich was adopted through foster care in Alabama in 2014 after his adoptive parents, Julie and Darrell, attended Orphan Day at their church. They already had three teenagers.
“I was adopted,” Julie Dapprich told Alabama Living. “So I feel like I could understand Josh’s struggle a little better. When we had Orphan Day at the church, we took a look at the paperwork and the website, and we just knew. We knew what was right for our family.”
There are still about 250 children still looking for adoptive families in Alabama, a number that hasn’t fluctuated much in recent years. But the increase in adoptive families is welcome news.
As Ivey stated, “It sends a strong, wonderful message to all the foster care children in our state.”
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