Nor is this a rare scenario. Ohio alone has had several similar cases since enacting its putative registry in 1997. Often, the children were clearly, or likely, not adoptable. For example: In Re Lichtenberg 03-LW-0864 (12th) - after the father signed the Indiana registry, the adoption agency sent the child to Ohio for placement, trying to thwart the Indiana registration; In Re Vest 01-LW-0846 (10th) - the unwed father signed the registry and sent support to child support enforcement and to the mother, both of whom refused to accept the money; In Re Brooks (2000), 136 Ohio App.3d 824 (10th Dist.) - the adoptive parents petitioned for adoption even though the father had established a court-recognized parental relationship with he child and no reasonable grounds for termination existed; In re J.

H. 03-LW-4293 (9th), the blind father, who had signed the registry and told the mother he wanted to raise the child jointly with her, did not abandon the child because the mother had refused his visitation attempts; In re Adoption of Williams 98-LW-2763 (5th) (the father did not abandon the mother because the mother had refused to accept his support payments.)

And those are just the cases that were appealed. There have been cases in Ohio since 1997 where the birthfather was indeed irresponsible. In those, the fathers were not allowed a say in the adoption. See, In re Adoption of Cameron 03-LW-3158 (1st) - the father had not signed the putative father registry or filed a paternity acknowledgement; In re Adoption of Snavely 00-LW-4739 (2nd) (the father threatened to kill the child in utero and did not sign the putative father registry.) Ohio does not differ substantially from other states in the quantity and frequency of such cases. It goes on nationwide.

The question is: At what point will the adoption community stop its boo-hoo and mother-knows-best campaigns, and start insisting that certain mothers? and prospective adoptive parents take responsibility for their own foolish, harmful, and costly actions?

Instead, all we hear is a cry for stricter adoption laws to ?prevent such tragedies from happening.? Unwed fathers have enough hoops to jump through. Therefore, I can only ask that when the public reads and hears about a child being ?taken from the only home it has ever known? or that the main hindrance in adoptions is ?uncooperative? fathers, it recognize that as the adoption industry?s propagandistic claptrap. In truth, some irresponsible fathers wrongly prevail in contested adoptions, but most responsible fathers should never have had a adoption petition filed against them in the first place.
March 15, 2004