Open Adoption and Birth Fathers
Few birth fathers elect to take a role in adoption, given the fact the pregnancies were usually unplanned, and often there was no long-term relationship with the birth mother. For those few birth fathers who volunteer to take a helpful and active role in creating the adoption situation for the adopting parents, the potential benefits to a continuing relationship with the birth father can be just as viable as with a birth mother.
There are sometimes problems concerning birth mothers and adoption agencies who neglect to make sure the proper paperwork is done on the birth father's part. It is crucial to remember that no child can be relinquished legally without the birth father's consent, except in Utah. He must be given the chance to take full custody. For this purpose, many states have important putative father registries, although some adoption activists see these as a hindrance rather than a help.
Read more about this topic: Open Adoption
Famous quotes containing the words open, adoption, birth and/or fathers:
“A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then he is instructed in what is set above him. He learns that his being is without bound; that to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Frankly, I adore your catchy slogan, “Adoption, not Abortion,” although no one has been able to figure out, even with expert counseling, how to use adoption as a method of birth control, or at what time of the month it is most effective.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“... the black girls didn’t get these pills because their black ministers were up on the pulpit saying that birth control pills were black genocide. What I’m saying is that black men have exploited black women.... They didn’t want them to have any choice about their reproductive health. And if you can’t control your reproduction, you can’t control your life.”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)
“Contrary to all we hear about women and their empty-nest problem, it may be fathers more often than mothers who are pained by the children’s imminent or actual departure—fathers who want to hold back the clock, to keep the children in the home for just a little longer. Repeatedly women compare their own relief to their husband’s distress”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)