Adoption bill passes Senate with vaccination amendment attached

On Thursday, the Alabama Senate passed legislation simplifying Alabama’s complex adoption laws, speeding up the process of children finding permanent homes. The Senate included an amendment that would allow families with vaccine skepticism to be able to be involved in the foster care program.

House Bill 101 is sponsored by State Rep. Ginny Shaver. The adoption reform legislation was carried in the Alabama Senate by State Senator Arthur Orr.

“This is a Law Institute (ALI) bill,” Shaver said when the bill was in committee. “I started working on a bill and found out that they already had a committee working on rewriting the state’s adoption code.”

Shaver explained that the Alabama Law Institute had a committee of judges and lawyers who met on a conference call every two weeks for the last four years to modernize and improve Alabama’s existing adoption statutes.

“Alabama’s adoption law has not been touched in 30 years,” Shaver said. The rewritten 80-page bill “is very comprehensive and detailed.”

Shaver said that the new legislation divided minor adoptions versus adult adoptions. It also clarifies which court is the proper court, allows courts handling adoptions to work together and communicate, allows for electronic communication, provides rules for a contest of adoptions in certain situations, and clarifies procedures about relatives and stepparents who adopt a minor.

Orr did add some amendments in the Senate.

The first was a “technical amendment” and came from ALI and Shaver.

“This came from ALI and Rep. Shaver, the sponsor,” Orr explained. “It cleaned up some wording about grandparents.”

The second amendment deals with vaccinations and was negotiated by Orr with the Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR).

“I spent a good while talking to Commissioner [Nancy] Buckner, and she and the Department support this,” Orr said. “It is not the same amendment that was offered in the House that there was some controversy about.”

“The Department of Human Resources shall provide by rule the process through which an individual seeking to participate in foster care or adoption may apply for an exemption from any vaccination requirement for religious or other appropriate reason for himself, herself, or any other individual in his or her household.”

The Senate adopted both of the amendments.

“This has been a long time coming,” Orr said of the legislation. “We will move children more rapidly through the process of adoption and will remove needless hurdles.”

Sen Rodger Smitherman said, “I want to commend ALI. ALI is a collection of legal minds from all over the state.”

“I am on the ALI board of directors, so I got to see the committee work on this,” Smitherman said.

Orr said that the legislation has “lots of changes” to Alabama’s adoption laws “that will certainly expedite the process.”

“I would like to thank DHR. They have a lot of challenges,” Orr said.

The Senate voted to pass HB101 30 to 0.

The legislation now goes back to the Alabama House of Representatives for them to consider the changes that were made by the Senate.

The Legislature will return on Tuesday for the 11^th legislative day of the 2023 Alabama Regular Legislative Session.

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