Responding to a comment
Jun 11, 2005 Adoption
Persephone said, “It works both ways though, doesn’t it? I can’t base this on anything in particular, but it’s always been my understanding that unless there are special circumstances, when the father is named both parents must agree to the adoption. If either parent doesn’t consent, then both parents are responsible for supporting the child.”
It depends on the state. Here in Ohio, the father has no rights around the adoption plan unless he registers for the putative father registry, (which I’m going to write more about later) or he is actively supporting the mother financially and/or emotionally. The mother has no legal obligation to notify the father that she is terminating her (and thus his) parental rights.
If a man finds out that a woman he slept with has made an adoption plan, he has 30 days after her parental rights are surrendered to go to court and try to get custody of the baby back. However, unless he can prove that he was in her life as a support person, he won’t have a chance. And unless he was living with her or visiting her regularly (in which case the courts would likely argue that he should have stopped the adoption plan before the papers were signed), he will have no say in what happens with his child.
What happens at the agency level (and I’m assuming that in a private adoption, the lawyers would take care of this) is that the woman names the father of the baby and then the agency looks to see if he has registered with the putative father registry. If he has, they notify him that an adoption plan is in place. Only twice did a father respond and then go to court in my social worker’s adoption career and both times the men lost since they were not part of the woman’s life during the bulk of her pregnancy. The woman has no obligation to seek out the father to notify him if he has not registered. (This is not true in other states where a woman may have to go to great lengths — advertising in X many papers, for example — to contact her child’s father before she can make an adoption plan.)
I’m not sure how well advertised the putative father registry is. I had never heard of it before we started to learn about Ohio adoption laws and neither had Brett. I don’t think that many men are aware of their paternal rights and responsibilities.
Anyway, I decided to go and do some research this weekend about birth dads since I haven’t done much before now. I have a couple of assignments due on Monday so I don’t know how far I’ll get but I’ll share whatever I can find out.
June 11th, 2005 at 10:57 am
in missouri you have to go to great lengths to notify and gain consent from the birthfather. when i was first considering my adoption plan i was not yet willing to identify jonathan’s birthfather. in light of that, i was informed that an investigation would have to take place - classmates & friends would be interviewed, ads would be put in the paper, etc.
June 11th, 2005 at 3:04 pm
Very interesting. My first instinct, without any thinking at all behind it, is that I don’t like Ohio’s laws very much. My cousin was a birth father, and he didn’t live with his girlfriend or support her, but was emotionally invested in the pregnancy and in what happened to the child. I have a son, and if someone he was with got pregnant, never told him, and placed the baby for adoption…well, it doesn’t feel right. I’m not saying we, as his family, would disagree with or try to interfere with her choice, but I think birth fathers do have rights.
I know that someone with more reflective reasoning could point out all the ways that this shouldn’t be. I’m sure there are solid legal reasons behind Ohio’s laws. And I’m glad they worked in yours, and Madison’s, favor. I wonder if I’m wise to comment, not thinking things through….
June 11th, 2005 at 7:08 pm
Further thoughts….
Obviously, if my son had a relationship that resulted in a crisis pregnancy, and the woman chose not to tell him, there’s a good chance he’d be reaping what he’d sown. I don’t want to stereotype women in crisis pregnancies. If someone chose not to tell him, I’d assume she had a darn good reason. But as a GRANDPARENT, I would want him to know. That was the framework in which I was considering the question.
Also, at some level, short of out-and-out abuse, I would think my son had a right to know, no matter how crappy the relationship had become.
I just want to be clear that, in the abstract, I still have a lot of sympathy for the many tough decisions that women facing crisis pregnancies have to make, including decisions about what to tell their partners.
June 11th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
I’m pretty sure Illinois law is the same as Ohio’s. Mama Rose claims not to know who Nat’s father is, but we aren’t sure that she isn’t trying to protect Nat (and the rest of the family) from the father, as she indicated that the possibilities were not good people.
She was not required to tell the possible fathers anything. Our lawyer put and ad in the paper for any man who thinks he might be the father of Mama Rose’s baby, born on blah blah etc. to register as a putative father. After 90 days of nothing, his rights are cancelled.
Our friend David strongly objects to this. He was almost an unknowing birth father years ago and found out right as the mother was losing her rights to the six-month old baby (because of neglect) he was only 19, but said he wanted the baby if it was going to go to the mother or to foster care otherwise, but cousins of the mother came forward to adopt and David signed off, since they were good friends.
But he loves children, raised one almost entirely alone (from 18 months onward) and would take Nat in a heartbeat if we needed him to. He is not like the man or men Mama Rose thinks might have fathered Nat. I’m glad the law leaves it to her discretion. For every would-be great father who loses his rights unfairly, I’d bet there are 100 potentially dangerous ones who it would be better to avoid as much as possible.