Tagged: foreign adoption

 Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill into law on Tuesday that gives people who were adopted access to non-certified copies of their birth certificates. Before now they had to get a special court order. More than 50 percent of families in Washington state have been impacted by adoption — meaning someone in their extended family is either an adoptive parent, an adoptee or the birth parent of an adoptive child.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently signed a law prohibiting US citizens from adopting Russian children. The US adopted 748 children from Russia in 2012, with roughly 8,600 adoptions from foreign countries in total. Every year, hundreds of families adopt children from places that are drastically different — socially, politically, and economically — from the United States. So our question is: How important is it to preserve the cultural identity of adopted children? Ross Reynolds takes your questions and discusses international adoption with Spring Hecht from the World Association for Children and Parents.

A Washington family is scheduled to return home Saturday with days to spare before a new Russian law bans American families from adopting Russian children.