State Duma bans child adoptions by foreign same-sex couples

Russia’s State Duma on Friday adopted in the third, final reading a bill on support for orphaned children. This initiative stems from a presidential decree of last December. The first deputy chairperson of the State Duma’s committee for family, women’s and children’s affairs, Olga Batalina, said the document laid the basis for systemic support for families - those who have found themselves in grave situations and for parents that decide to adopt orphaned children. The lump-sum benefit for families adopting children older than seven years of age, children with disabilities and brothers and sisters goes up to 100,000 rubles. Under the same law Russia’s orphans will now have a chance to take medical treatment outside the country at the expense of the federal budget. “We should abandon the practice of money-raising campaigns to fund medical operations that cannot be performed in Moscow. In the first place, this concerns orphaned children,” Batalina said. The law imposes a ban on the adoption of Russian children by same-sex foreign couples. As the head of the State Duma’s committee on security and resistance to corruption, Irina Yarovaya said, “the decision to prohibit foreign same-sex couples from adopting Russian children is a measure to ensure the children’s safety and constitutional rights.” “The family as a legal and social institution has existed for centuries,” Yarovaya said. “Attempts to simulate the institution of the family and demands for allowing adoptions by same-sex couples are unnatural from the standpoint of the laws of nature and the institution of family law.”