From: beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver)
Subject: Re: adoption rules
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 23:54:43 GMT

bweiss@cs.arizona.edu (Beth Weiss) writes:
>peri@cco.caltech.edu (Michal Leah Peri) writes:
>|> Don, I've thought about it alot this weekend.  I've concluded that 
>|> the *good* of protecting the father's right to stop an adoption is not
>|> worth the *bad* of subjecting the mother and child to the risk of 
>|> injury from an abusive father.  Thus I cannot condone a legal 
>|> requirement for paternal notification.  
>
>I can support a requirement for paternal notification.  I'm not sure
>what to do in those cases where the mother doesn't know (or claims
>she doesn't know) who the father is, though.
>
>Scenario: Woman has baby she knows she can't support, and wishes to
>give up for adoption.  She claims she doesn't know who the father
>is.  
>
>Now what?   
>
>Options:
>1) refuse to allow Mom to give up Baby, even though she doesn't want
>the baby, and that would make her (I would think) more likely to
>abuse the child
>
>2) Force her to list all possible fathers and contact them all to
>see what they want to do.  If a possible father wants custody if the
>child is his, then do DNA tests to see if he's really the father. 
>If all possibles don't care if the child is put for adoption, then
>there's no problem.
>
>3) Figure that if she doesn't know, whoever she names would likely
>be uninterested/disbelieving that they were the father.
>
>#1 seems as if it would leave to child abuse.  #2 sounds fairest to
>me.   #3 doesn't give men enough credit for decency.

#2 sounds fairest of these to me.  The mother could still willfully
name wrong candidates, so the bottom line is that it isn't very effective.

>What other ideas?

Do not allow the child to be placed for an adoption until
suitable tests have been taken (eg. blood, DNA, etc) and
a registry of the kind Michal imagines already exists 
has been searched.  Enact a rebuttable presumption that if
the father is found, he shall have sole custody if he desires.

Do not allow any transfer of physical custody until
the mother states in writing, under penalty of fine 
and imprisonment, that she cannot identify the father.

Define "adoption" to mean "transfer of parental rights."
Thus, the mother can transfer her parental rights to the
adopting parents, and this can be made "final" at the 
appropriate time (6 months?).  A "final" transfer of rights
can only be made for *notified* parties.


Provide full visitation rights to any father whose child was
adopted without his knowledge or permission.  Do not terminate
the father's parental rights, under any circumstances, without
his knowledge and due process.  Thus, it may be best for the child 
to remain with the adoptive parents in the end, but the father has 
at least the same rights as if the mother had kept the child.


This would inhibit a quick-and-dirty adoption for a woman
who wants to violate the child's and father's rights, or
for a woman who doesn't want to pay child support to the father.
It would inhibit adoption by parents who haven't made their best
efforts to have the father identified.

Don
-- 
beaver@cs.psu.edu                       Opinions from the PC-challenged
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