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Published February 21, 2013

Legislature looks to protect adopted children

Melissa Santos

A report on 15 adopted children who were abused or neglected in Washington is spurring legislators to consider laws to protect children from their adopted parents.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony Wednesday on House Bill 1675, which would require the state to keep track of failed adoption applications as well as investigate adoptive parents' methods of disciplining children. The proposed reforms are ones that were recommended in a 2012 report by the Department of Social and Health Services' Severe Child Abuse and Neglect Committee.

According to TVW, the bill aims to prevent cases like that of Hana Grace-Rose Williams, an Ethiopian girl who was starved and left outside to freeze to death by her adoptive parents in Skagit County. The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the proposal today.

TVW's blog, The Capitol Record, has the full story.