Indian Child Welfare Act (1978)

They Followed Doctors’ Orders. Then Their Children Were Taken Away.

Federal law has put thousands of women on anti-addiction medications into an impossible bind: Give up your treatment or risk losing your baby.

The decision on Thursday bolsters Indigenous sovereignty by upholding a 1978 law aimed at keeping Native American adoptees within tribes.

At issue in the case was whether a law aimed at keeping Native American adoptees within tribes is constitutional.

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 sought to keep Native children in tribal communities. The Supreme Court may change that this spring.

The president must be clear about what the court has done, and what it may yet do.