Court Opinion

ID: 9607554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:59:53.941261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:25.151865
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
Although I concur fully with all that is stated in the majority opinion, I write separately to urge the General Assembly to reconsider the extraordinary hardship it has placed on the natural parents of these adoptive children, and particularly upon these natural mothers, who are frequently poor and isolated from their families. As a juvenile judge I saw first-hand the extreme stress placed upon these mothers, who in many cases gave their children for adoption not because they wanted to or because they did not love the children, but because they felt that adoption was the best, if not the only, recourse available for the successful upbringing of their children.
Therefore, considering the extraordinary pressures bearing on these parents at the time these decisions must be made, ten days is entirely too short a period in which to revoke their surrender of their parental rights or irrevocably lose their right to do so. Consequently, I suggest the General Assembly revisit this issue. In this regard, I note that this Court received the benefit of an amicus brief from counsel who played a significant role in successfully including the ten-day period in our law, but I also note that his interest in this matter is as an adoptive parent and as an advocate for adoptive parents. While this continuing interest is laudable, the interests of natural parents should be considered by the General Assembly on this issue. Finality is an important end in these cases, but it is not the only end, and I do not believe the rights of the natural parents should be terminated so swiftly.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray joins in this special concurrence.
*130James B. Outman, amicus curiae.