Birth Fathers Often Left Out of Process

Every day, in tiny-type legal notices, newspaper advertisements notify biological fathers that their children will be adopted unless the men come forward. ``None of these guys ever finds the citations, much less reads them,'' says Herbert Friedman, an adoption attorney in Boston who placed such ads for almost 20 years. ``I've never had a birth father respond to one.''

By law and common practice, the decision to give up a child for adoption has always been the province of the birth mother. Biological fathers often don't even know about the pregnancy, sometimes leave if they do know, or show little or no interest.

There are exceptions, but experts agree the percentage of involved men is small. And in the wake of the high profile Baby Richard case, in which a birth father wrested custody of his son from the boy's adoptive family, states have acted to protect the security of adoption by spelling out what men must do to claim their children.

The clearest trend is the establishment, in 18 states, of ``putative father registries'' that men must notify if they believe they have impregnated a woman. Typically a man loses his rights unless he registers either before an adoption or soon afterward.

Most experts who have studied this legal approach don't like it. Whatever its intent, they argue, it effectively ensures that birth fathers are excluded from the process, since virtually no one knows the registries exist.

``I'm no fan of biological fathers coming out of nowhere to claim paternity,'' says Joan Hollinger, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a leading US specialist on adoption law.

``But I do think it's an unrealistic expectation for a man to send a postcard to the secretary of state every time he has sex.''

It's unusual for men to contest an adoption, and rare for them to succeed. Hollinger says she knows of none in the last couple of years in which a birth father won.

They lose because courts give precedence to the mothers' wishes and because most states require that birth fathers show significant personal or financial interest, during and after a pregnancy, to retain their rights. Even states with relatively strong protection for birth fathers try to ensure that adoptions don't unravel.

Vermont, for instance, made adoptions virtually irreversible when it rewrote its adoption laws last year. At the same time, the overhaul included more pre-adoption rights for birth fathers, in large part because one of its authors, Kimberly Cheney, is one.

It was 1959 when Cheney, who would later become Vermont's attorney general, agreed with the woman he had impregnated that their child should be surrendered for adoption.

``I believed what I was told: that you can give this kid away and you won't think any more about it,'' he says.

Then on April 29, 1986, as he was tucking his 9-year-old son into bed, Cheney got a call from San Francisco. It was from the daughter, Amy, whom he had always wondered about.

The young woman, whom Cheney now sees regularly, had a troubled life with her adoptive family and has taken her birth father's last name.

``Amy's view now is that adoption is tantamount to abandonment. She thinks you either keep your baby or you abort it,'' says Cheney. Asked whether he agrees, he pauses briefly and replies solemnly: ``I guess I do.''

Researchers say few biological fathers react as Cheney did. And, as with birth mothers, there appears to be a powerful generational difference between the men who gave up their children during adoption's secretive past and those who do so now.

To avoid surprises, many lawyers and agencies now hire detectives and make expensive, extensive efforts to locate birth fathers and get their permission before an adoption is completed. The legal notices, which include details like the mothers' names, are a last resort if the men can't be found.

Some experts question these practices, saying that social workers and adoption practitioners -- who sometimes disparage birth fathers as ``sperm donors'' -- should try to get them involved in parenting or in planning their child's adoption.

``I think it's ironic that on the one hand, as a society, we want fathers to take more responsibility and get involved with their kids,'' says Madelyn Freundlich, head of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York. ``But in adoption, we want to get rid of them.''

For more information, please contact:

Adam Pertman, Executive Director
Adoption Nation Education Initiative
apertman@peoplepc.com
www.adoptionnation.com
617-332-8944 (work)

Credits: Adam Pertman