What Birth Fathers Don't Know Hurts Everyone

Erik L. Smith

 

 

Excluding birthfathers from the adoption process subjects adoptive parents to serious legal and emotional risks.1From: Carney, E. "Birth Fathers: The Forgotten Half of the Story", Adoptive Families 2001. www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles. Adoption attorneys have stated that many contested adoptions result from birth fathers feeling angry at being treated as if they didn't exist. Thus, professionals advise that one best avoids disrupted adoptions by treating birth fathers with respect from the outset.2Id., quoting adoption attorney Mark McDermott.

 

I can vouch for this.

 

In 1992, my girlfriend became pregnant. Initially shocked and confused, we weren't sure what to do. Realizing neither one of us made much money and that we were not marriage material, we decided on adoption. Because the birthmother wanted to conceal the pregnancy from her parents, she moved across country where she secured a full-time teaching job with good maternity benefits. Before she left, I told her I would respect her privacy, but would like to be included in the adoption process. She agreed. She declined my offers of support money, saying she had enough funds to relocate and a good job to go to. She would call me with updates. Our dating relationship was over.

 

During the months that followed, I envisioned receiving a letter stating I had been named as the father of a child relinquished for adoption, that the adoption agency wanted my input about the type of couple I would like my child to be placed with, and perhaps my release of relevant medical information. 

 

It never happened. By the due date for the birth, the mother had not called me for a month. When three more weeks went by without word, I feared abortion or baby-selling. When another week went by and I could not locate the birthmother, I knew something was amiss. 

 

Frantic and fearful, I borrowed two thousand dollars from friends and family to pay for investigators and long distance phone calls and began searching. Two months later, a lawyer located the adoption file and mailed me the documents. When I read the petition--"the unknown father has voluntarily, and with knowledge of the pregnancy, abandoned the mother" I was befuddled. When I saw the publication notice stating that the unknown father had been "sued," I became angry. When I saw a "father information sheet" left almost blank, and a court order stating that the parental rights of the unknown father were forever terminated, I was furious.3In the Interest of Baby Boy C_____. 93-PA-00361, consolidated into 93-PA-01108, Bexar County, Texas. Note: Since this case, Texas, and many other states, enacted putative father registries to prevent natural fathers from "disrupting" adoptions. The effects of the registries are debatable. Ohio, for instance, has seen a case a year in its appellate courts since its putative father registry was enacted. In almost half of those cases, the natural father, despite not signing the registry, succeeded in overturning the adoption after extended litigation.