by Candi Cushman

About the author: Candi Cushman is a writer for the Citizen, a publication of Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian organization.

Laurie Ellinger still remembers the moment she first cradled Adam,* a chubby-cheeked black newborn with twinkling eyes and a budding crop of curly hair. Barely a month old, Adam was suffering a painful withdrawal from the drugs that had been pumped into his bloodstream before he was born.

So for the next several months, Ellinger, an emergency foster mom in Alameda County, Calif., rocked Adam to sleep in her arms as tremors quaked his tiny frame.

“He wanted to be a happy baby,” Ellinger fondly recalled. “When he wasn’t in pain, he was so sweet. He would smile and respond...