An independent voice for ethical adoption
Utah adoption laws: Some call it kidnapping
From the Salt Lake City Weekly:
In most states, putative fathers have certain requirements they must meet to stop an adoption, but many local and national experts agree that Utah is one of the toughest—if not the toughest—state for unmarried fathers to stop an adoption. Presiding judge of the Utah Court of Appeals James Davis has written that Utah adoption laws put unmarried fathers in an “impossible bind.” Chief Justice of the Utah Supreme Court Christine Durham has written that Utah could become a national “magnet for those seeking to unfairly cut off opportunities” for fathers qualified to raise their own children. Five men registered as putative fathers in June alone. According to the Utah Office of Vital Records and Statistics, about 20 men register each year.
The rhetoric from the aggrieved families, many of whom communicate cross-country, is flaring. Geri Wyatt, of Dumphries, Va., whose granddaughter Emma was born in Virginia but was placed for adoption under Utah law, says the Beehive State is facilitating kidnapping.
“We went to the hospital to see his child and the hospital [in Virginia] … lied to us and told us there was no baby there. While they were keeping us at bay, they slipped the birth mother and baby out a side exit … where she signed away her rights on a Utah relinquishment form,” she says. “To me, if that isn’t kidnapping, I don’t know what is.”
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