A child is not considered to be abandoned, however, when he or she has been placed temporarily in an orphanage, if the parent or parents are contributing or trying to contribute to the child's support, or the parent or parents otherwise show that they have not ended their parental obligations to the child. Difficult Issues in Orphan Cases Under U.S. immigration law, the child of a sole or surviving parent may be considered an orphan if that parent is unable to care for the child properly and has forever or irrevocably released him or her for emigration and adoption. The child of an unwed mother normally may be considered to be an orphan as long as the mother does not marry. The child of a surviving parent may also be considered to be an orphan if it is proven that one of the child's parents died and the surviving parent has not since married. However, marriage results in the child's having a stepfather or stepmother under immigration law.
Most countries have legal procedures for the acknowledgment of children by their natural fathers.
Therefore, adoptive and prospective adoptive parents of children who were born out of wedlock in any country should find out whether the children have been legitimized. Some countries have passed laws that eliminate all legal distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate children. In those countries, all children are considered to be legitimate or legitimized children of their natural fathers as of the effective date of the laws in question. Of course, paternity must be established. A child born out of wedlock and living in a country that has such a law and whose paternity has been legally established has two parents even though the parents never married and may not be living together.