Court Opinion

ID: 9695981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:32:56.468784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:17.752791
License: Public Domain

Wacheneeld, J.
(dissenting). Altering nature’s pattern under any circumstances is usually precarious. To take away from the natural parents their own flesh and blood and donate that bit of humanity to others cannot be lightly undertaken. The natural law precedes our man-made code and should not be contravened unless the emergency is clear and unmistakable. The slightest doubt should be Tesolved on the side where one almost instinctively expects to find it.
The uncertainties of life, the emotional disturbances, the mental strains and pressures, the valleys and the heights, will always remain to be encountered as long as one lives and pursues life’s pathway. Their devious forms and variations are too complicated and numerous to be susceptible of tabulation. Our inability .to predict or solve them anchors us closely to nature’s intendment, with the fervent prayer we will find a guide to take us on our journey, thankful for and recompensed by the joys we recall while striving to forget the shadows and the sorrows we must silently endure.
A judicial approach does not make the future more readily foreseeable and the assurance of our decision, whatever it be, is unfortunately circumscribed by the frailties of human judgment.
*484I doubt its proof, but assuming abandonment, it, together with the surrender agreement, does not possess a legal 'finality precluding our courts from considering and determining its rescission and the restoring of the custody of the infant to the natural parents so long as it is for the best interests of the child.
There is no law or legislative mandate, prior to adoption, forever closing the door to recapture by parents whose responsibility and parental instincts are reawakened and normalized by the impact of physical separation. The natural parents of a child are entitled, against all the world, to its custody, and only the primary consideration of the child’s welfare has priority over this frequently-expressed doctrine. Abandonment, even though it. occur, can be repented of and, subject to the child’s best interests, parental rights and custody can be again acquired.
Even governments by sovereign fiat attempted to wrench youth from parent, endeavoring to enhance their worth for imperialistic objectives by intensifying and supplying special education and training. Eventual realization' of the underlying fundamental error brought about the plan’s complete revocation. The failure of this endeavor supplies additional evidence that the natural family is still the real unit and the foundation of society.
Here the child was 16 months of age when surrendered to the Society. She was in custody of the adopting parents about 8% months and was two years and three months old at the time of the institution of this suit. This factual situation does not lend itself to the thought that the restoration of the custody to her natural parents would impair or jeopardize the child’s best interests. In fact, the contrary seems more probable.
This cause has already received the meticulous consideration of five different judges, most of whom have recorded their reasons supporting the natural parents’ claims. I have attempted, contrary to the usual procedure, to give no consideration to them in coming to my own independent con*485elusion, but nevertheless find myself in accord with their views.
I would affirm the judgment below.
Heher, J., joins in this dissent.
For reversal— Chief Justice Vanderbilt, and Justices Oliphant, Burling and Brennan-—4.
For affirmance—-Justices Heher and Wachenfeld—2.