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Part 1: Putative Father Registries
Memo to men: If you’re having unprotected sex, you’d better register that fact with your state.
According to an intriguing article in the New York Times, about 30 states have registries – called putative father registries – for unwed fathers (FYI, putative means “supposed” or “generally regarded as such”).
In plain English, if a man suspects that his sex partner may be pregnant or at one time was pregnant with his child and he is registered, he may have a better chance of claiming parental rights to his child in a court challenge.
May is the definitive word here. According to the article, one man, Jeremiah Jones, discovered that his former fiancée was pregnant three weeks before the baby’s due date, when an adoption attorney called him to ask if he’d request to relinquish his child. He missed the deadline to file in Florida’s registry and lost his parental rights.
Jones apparently tried to contact his ex, who disappeared. He filed a paternity petition the day before the baby was born, but his attorney didn’t know about the registry and never mentioned registering. Jones is appealing the termination of his rights.
The existence of putative father registries seems to be a closely-guarded secret. In Florida, where there were 89,436 out-of-wedlock births in 2004, only 47 men registered.
In most states that have registries, fewer than 100 men register each year. The exception is Indiana, where men are notified of the registry’s existence when a woman names them as the father of their child. In that state, 50 men per week register.
One in every three American babies has unwed parents, so you can imagine how many millions of men out there should be thinking about registering.
Unfortunately, the registries themselves don’t have any continuity from state to state. According to Tamar Lewin, the article’s writer, in some states, “fathers must actually claim paternity; in others, just the possibility of paternity. The deadlines may be 5 days after birth or 30, or any time before an adoption petition is filed.”
Even is a man is registered, there’s no guarantee that the system will work. Because the registries function differently in different states, if either the father or mother move or if a child is relinquished for adoption in a different state, being registered doesn’t help much, if at all.
Continued in next post
