I write in opposition to the proposed regulatory change which would limit the rights of private adoption agencies to set their own standards for adoptive services.

Even if you do not believe that same-sex, single, or non-married couple adoptions are an inferior result to placing a child in the care of a loving, committed, married, two-parent family, there are many people, including mothers looking to put their children up for adoption, who do want the best for their children.

Further, those mothers may also wish to choose the religion their child will be raised under, or conversely to choose a family with no religious affiliation.  By taking away the rights of private adoption agencies to make their own requirements for adoptive parents, you curtail the rights of those mothers to choose what they believe is best for their children.  You force the child into a situation where they can well be adopted into an inferior situation.

These new rules have no rational benefit for the child, and adoption is not about benefits for the couples seeking to adopt, but for the welfare of the child.  For the state to assume it knows better what is best for a child than the birth mother, and to therefore remove choices for that mother, is to usurp our basic freedoms. 

So let's not compound the error of forcing some children into adoptions that are inferior and less beneficial for the child by further forcing all children to face that same peril.  There is no requirement that a private adoption agency exist, and no rule requiring a mother offer her child through such an agency -- it is a choice.  There is therefore no excuse for forcing new requirements on those agencies, and destroying the choice of the mother. 

I strongly urge the rejection of these anti-Choice, anti-religious, anti-freedom regulations.