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Ohio: Adoption rulings may boost birth father’s rights
From The Columbus Dispatch:
Adoptive parents often don’t worry much about challenges from an alleged birth father who wasn’t married to the mother.
If the man didn’t meet the 30-day deadline for signing the state’s putative-father registry, offer support during the pregnancy or establish paternity before the adoption was filed, he might have little chance to halt the placement.
But two recent Ohio Supreme Court rulings in favor of birth fathers are putting putative-father laws on shaky ground, some observers say…
“Adoption attorneys won’t admit that the registry is denying responsible fathers their rights,” said Erik L. Smith, a Dayton-area paralegal who fought to block the adoption of his son in 1993. “What the legislature needs to do is come back and create laws that are reasonable. Put forth a hybrid deadline, not this 30-day limit for everyone.”
The Ohio Putative Father Registry was created in 1997 as a way to allow children to be promptly placed for adoption and avoid court battles. Putative essentially means reputed – the man thinks he’s the father of the child but is not married to the child’s mother and has not established paternity in court.
To be considered a putative father, the man must sign the registry within 30 days of the birth. But, even then, he might not be able to block adoption if a judge determines that he was not supportive of the mother and child.
In the two cases the court decided by 4-3 rulings last month, neither father had paternity legally determined before the adoption proceedings began, according to Ohio Supreme Court documents.
One man, whose child was placed for private adoption in Lucas County, had signed the registry on time. Another had not signed the registry but had been involved with the mother and sought to contest the adoption of his daughter by the woman’s new husband in Hamilton County.
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