A Right to Adoption?
Two significant developments in Russia’s approach to the adoption of Russian children to foreigners have taken place this year. In January, a Russian law prohibiting American citizens from adopting Russian children took effect, thereby bringing to an end, at least for now, the longstanding and generally robust history of Russia-U.S. adoptions (between 1995 and 2011, almost 60,000 Russian children were adopted by American citizens). And just this week, the Russian Parliament approved a bill banning adoptions of Russian children to foreign same-sex couples. These laws can be expected to have, in the short-term, a discernible impact on the adoption prospects for the 100,000 or so Russian children resident in institutions.
The ban on American adoptions is known colloquially in Russia as the Dima Yakovlev Bill, named for a 21-month-old Russian boy adopted to American parents in 2008 and re-named Chase Harrison. Less than six months after his adoption, Chase died of hyperthermia after unintentionally being left in a car by his adoptive father. In a case that became highly politicized in Russia, the father was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter by a Circuit Court judge in Fairfax County, Virginia, in December 2008. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shortly thereafter issued a statement on the acquittal, expressing deep anger at the “flagrantly unjust ruling,” and implying a connection between Chase Harrison’s status as a Russian adoptee, and the lack of adequate punishment for his death.
Russia’s decision to ban American adoptions is at first glance a policy response to Russia-U.S. adoptions, such as Chase’s, that have gone wrong – Russia claims that a total of twenty Russian adoptees have been killed, whether intentionally or otherwise, by American adoptive parents. However the law is more commonly referred to in the U.S. as the “Anti-Magnitsky Law.”