1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

I am in opposition to HB1772 (Amato). While this bill is presented as a measure to support adoptive families, it prioritizes the financial interests of adoptive parents over the rights, well-being, and dignity of adoptees themselves. Adoption subsidy policy should center the child, not the adults seeking to adopt. All adoption begins with profound loss, the severing of a child's first family. By directing public funds toward legal fees incurred by prospective adoptive parents, this bill treats children as the end product of a legal transaction rather than as full human beings with their own rights and futures. The $2,500 to $4,000 in proposed grants for attorney fees could instead be invested in family preservation services, kinship care supports, or post-adoption resources that directly benefit the child after placement. The bill's framework treats adoption as a simple, finite transaction. The paltry cap on legal fee assistance reveals a mindset that once the papers are signed, the child's need for significant financial investment ends. This is false. Adoptees, especially those from foster care, require lifelong access to mental healthcare, cultural connection, and often services for disabilities stemming from prenatal trauma or neglect. By failing to mandate robust, permanent support tied to the child's needs rather than the adoptive parents' legal status, the state guarantees that the most vulnerable adoptees will be left without resources as adults. This legislation views children as liabilities to be managed, not as whole human beings with a right to ongoing care and connection. It builds a system where financial support is conditional and precarious, mirroring the conditional love and security many adoptees already fear. Adoptee rights advocates have long documented how the legal framework surrounding adoption strips adoptees of access to their original birth records, biological family connections, and medical histories. HB1772 does nothing to address these harms. It deepens a system that financially incentivizes the legal finalization of adoptions without adding a single protection or benefit for the adoptees at the center of those proceedings. I urge you to reject this punitive framework and instead invest in permanent, non-disruptable subsidies tied to the child, fund lifelong mental health services for adoptees, and prioritize policies that treat adoptees as rights-bearing individuals deserving of continuous support, not as outcomes to be finalized.