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Part 2, Continued from previous post
In part 1 of this post, I summarized a New York Times article that explained what Putative Father Registries are and how they do and don’t work.
The article points out some of the inconsistencies and loopholes within our paternity and adoption “system” – specifically, the rights that fathers have (or should have). Pregnant women can choose whether to abort their child or parent their child without informing the father. But when the mothers choose adoption, they are expected to provide the identity of the father and who will be asked whether he wants to relinquish his parental rights.
The mothers are often reluctant to reveal the father’s identify, however. The scenario I hear about the most is the father who disappears into thin air the moment he learns his sex partner is pregnant. This happens in cases ranging from one-night stands to long-term relationships.
In other cases, it’s the mother who disappears. She may be afraid to let her sex partner know she’s pregnant and feels she doesn’t want his input on what she should do with her child. I’ve talked with a woman who didn’t tell their partner she was pregnant because she was afraid he’d want to raise the child, and there was no way on earth she was going to let some one-night stand or some “jerk of a boyfriend” raise “her” child.
I’ve always struggled with the issue of informing the father about a pregnancy. While I think there are some circumstances in which it would be best not to inform the father about a pregnancy (perhaps a rape or abusive situation), generally speaking, I think it takes two to tango and therefore, fathers have as much right – and responsibility – to participate in the decision-making process regarding an unborn child as do mothers. Men who participate in creating a pregnancy and then refuse to pay child support really irk me, but that’s another subject.
It seems that the main purpose of these registries is to lessen the number of fathers who challenge the adoptive placement of their child. There’s some debate about whether the registries do more to protect fathers’ rights or to protect adoptive parents from a contested adoption.
According to Martin Bauer, president of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, “registries can protect men against birth mothers who won’t disclose the father’s name or actively lie about his identity.”
The registries clarify whether a baby is free for adoption, possibly preventing the removal of a child who’s already been placed in an adoptive home. The registries have some adoptive parents scared, particularly those parents who adopted a child when no father was located to relinquish parental rights.
If a father has registered or filed for paternity in a different state from which the adoption took place and the registration is discovered years down the line, should he be allowed to regain custody of his child?
Senator Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana, is introducing the Proud Father Act in Congress later this year. If it becomes law, this act would create a national registry for putative fathers.
Sounds like a good first step, but one that’s going to take a great deal of time, commitment, tax payers’ dollars and legal finagling to get working smoothly.
