Court Opinion

ID: 9618504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:13:12.706278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:30.037922
License: Public Domain

Waller, Justice
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
Clark contends that § 20-7-1700(A)(3) requires a consent form containing the child’s sex and date of birth be signed after the birth of the child. I agree with the majority that, ide*277ally, a consent form should be obtained after the birth of the child. However, to require absolute compliance with the technical terms of the statute when its conditions are otherwise met is, in my opinion, to elevate form over substance and defeat the very purpose for which the statute was enacted. In my view, the consent given here satisfies the purpose and policy of the statute.
Five days prior to the birth of her child, Clark signed a consent form which contains the following: the child’s approximate due date and race; a statement that adoption is the child’s best interests; and acknowledgment the consent to adoption is given freely and voluntarily, and is not given under duress; an acknowledgment the consent is final and cannot be withdrawn without a Court order finding the consent involuntary or under duress; and a specific consent to termination of Clark’s parental rights in a proceeding by the adoptive parents.
Clark’s baby boy was born on January 30, 1994. Upon her discharge from the hospital the following afternoon, Clark advised nurses and hospital officials that she wanted to leave the baby there. She signed a hospital form stating that she consented to the adoption of her child, and directing the hospital to deliver the child to the attorney for the adoptive parents. Clark then left the hospital.1
In my opinion, to now permit Clark to retract her consent due to a mere technical noncompliance with the statute elevates form over substance, and clearly cannot have been the intent of the legislature in enacting the statute. The purpose of the statute is to ensure that birth parents freely and voluntarily consent to relinquish their particular child, and do not do so under conditions of duress. Here, Clark’s consent meets these requirements. The only technical defect complained of is that Clark did not sign the consent form after the birth of her child. Clark did, however, sign the hospital “Release of Infant” form after the birth of her child, consenting to the adoption of her particular baby boy, born on January 30,1994. In my view, when coupled with the earlier consent form, this “Release” ratified the prior relinquishment form and fully complied with the requisites of § 20-7-1700(A)(3).
*278To permit a technicality to vitiate Clark’s earlier consent, in my opinion, is to defeat the legislative intent for requiring consent. I would affirm the order of the Family Court.

 The following day, when the adoptive parents went to pick up the infant, they were advised that Clark had changed her mind.