On December 14, 1996, former president Bill Clinton instructed the secretary of health and human services to develop strategies to move children out of foster care and into permanent homes. He set a goal to at least double the number of adoptions among foster care children in six years. In response to Clinton's instructions, the Department of Health and Human Services introduced the child welfare initiative known as Adoption 2002 (Pertman 21). This issue was a major step in the process of giving children the chance to have a family, and for families to have children. There are many ways to adopt children from our own country and others around the world. Adoption has been around for many centuries and there are many forms. Adoption has also been a major issue with families considering the process and the situations that come along with adopting children. There are now many laws that are made in this country for the birth parents, adoptee and adoption parents also. Adoption can be a wonderful experience for many families and a great way for children without parental care to have the family they need, and for parents who cant have children, to give care and love for these types of children. Family is one of the most important aspects in our lives. Adoption is a way to make this important to individuals without. .
Adoption has been taking place almost as for back in history as we as men know. Adoption, "the method of establishing by law the social relationship of parent and child between individuals who are not each other's biological parent or child, is doubtless as old as humanity itself" (Carp 3). Adoption appears in the Code of Hammurabi, written by the Babylonians around 2285 B.C. It stated that, "if a man has taken a young child from his waters to son ship and has reared him up no one has any claim against the nursling" (Carp 8). The history of adoption in early American reveals a past that initially broke away from Europe and England's prohibition against adoptive kinship.