I’ve been following this story for some time now. To summarize, a man had an affair with a married woman in Ohio. She had a baby boy, whom she relinquished for adoption by a couple in Indiana. The birthfather registered with the Ohio putative father registry within 30 days. By law, the child should have been returned to him. Three years later, they’re still fighting.
The media obviously doesn’t tell us everything. There may be many facts that we should know to make an informed opinion. But, given the information that is out there, I have decided that the adoptive parents are giving us all a bad name.
Ohio adoption law rules that the biological father is the legal father. He followed the protocol he was supposed to follow, in the appropriate amount of time. The adoptive parents had the baby with them. Honestly, I don’t want to imagine what it would have been like if Jack’s biological father had a legal claim to him after the first week of his life. I presume it would be like losing a child to death.
On the other hand, the biological father has rights. I’ve said it before, as the mother of a son, I want to see biological fathers’ rights respected when the people in question are determined to be competent, supportive fathers. (In other words, no drugs, no domestic abuse, etc.) The adoptive parents had the baby for less than 30 days. If they had returned him to his biological father then, any damage to the child from the exchange would have been minimal.
Now that the child is 3-1/2, and has lived through a custody battle for his entire life. The lawyer for the adoptive parents is no doubt arguing that tearing the child away from the only parents he’s known would be catastrophic. But it didn’t have to be that way.
Cases like these frustrate me. No matter who “wins”, it seems that the child loses.
I find the same thing frustrating. Generally, the adoptive parents have more money, the support of the agency or lawyer, and birthparents have little. I changed my mind 24 hours after signing my parental rights away, called the agency and was told my daughter was placed with her family and I could not change my mind. I had just spent all my savings paying my living and medical expenses, so couldn’t afford a lawyer. I learned years later that I had 90 days to change my mind.
I feel for the child and his father. I feel for the adoptive parents too; they had their hearts set on a child, but forget that the child belongs to the birthparents first.
Pfiff Reitsport…
[...]When Birthfathers “Come Back” — U.S. Infant Adoption[...]…