Oregon to celebrate first statewide adoption day 

Oregon is celebrating its first statewide “Adoption Day” on Monday, following unanimous approval of a bill earlier this year.

Lawmakers passed House Bill 2019 to designate Aug. 25 as “Oregon Adoption Day.” The date carries deep personal meaning for Rep. Lucetta Elmer, R-McMinnville, who introduced the measure.

“The day this bill recognizes is not just a date on a calendar: It’s my day. The day I was adopted,” Elmer said.

“Adoption is an act of courage. It requires sacrifice, selflessness and a whole lot of faith from all sides,” she added. “It weaves together lives in ways that reflect the best of our humanity, and it is worthy of recognition.”

The law creates a “moment of acknowledgment for the thousands of Oregonians, children, birth parents, adoptive families and support systems who walk through the transformative journey of adoption,” Elmer said.

For her, this day shines “a light on the beauty of adoption” and sends “a message to every adopted child in Oregon: You are seen. You are loved. And you matter.”

Oregon Right to Life, which supported the effort, encouraged members of the pro-life community to share adoption stories while the bill advanced through the legislature. Some said adoption had changed their lives. 

Nadine Kincaid was adopted in Portland in 1955. 

“We had a wonderful upbringing, and I never questioned being adopted because I knew and accepted that God had placed me exactly into the right family for me,” she told Oregon Right to Life. 

Years later, she discovered her biological family in New Zealand and met her birth mother in 2018. 

“Being adopted has been such a blessing for me, and meeting my maternal birth family has given me roots and a better understanding of who I am,” she said.

Additionally, Mike and Linda Hartwig, unable to conceive after eight years of marriage, adopted their first child in 1990.

“With all the orchestrated events that took place, God clearly had chosen Rebekah to be in our family,” Linda recalled. “In every way, she was our daughter as if she had been born to us.”

Their family eventually grew through additional domestic and international adoptions.

“Each [child] is a story of God’s handiwork, working through people, situations and changing us in ways beyond our imagination,” she said.

Elmer’s legislation passed with strong bipartisan support. Oregon’s Adoption Day will now be recognized annually on Aug. 25.