Wendy McElroy has characteristically insightful commentary on the terrible, heartwrenching recent case of a 3-year-old boy ordered by te court to be separated from his adoptive parents and returned to the biological mother who surrendered him at birth. I saw a news report on this last night. As an adoptee, and father to a baby boy, watching the little boy ripped from the arms of his parents (yes, his parents) by force of the state and given to a bunch of white trash bums he does not know was almost unbearable.
McElroy has some excellent commentary, and she may have a point when she writes: “Whether the rights of Evan’s biological father were in fact violated remains a point of debate in this specific case, but overall, a good argument can be made for the opposite view: By ignoring the father’s rights at the outset of an adoption proceeding, courts set the stage for this kind of needless tragedy.”
McElroy repeates the notion that “Before an unwed woman can put a child up for adoption, the father should be given the opportunity to raise his child”. Well, I suppose this can be argued. Myself, I am partial to the notion that if you go fornicating with some woman who is not your wife, you have no right whatsoever to block her giving the baby up for adoption, if she so chooses. It is in the best interest of the baby, clearly, to be raised by married, loving, adoptived parents than an irresponsible, fornicating sperm donor.
And at the very least, if the sperm donor is to be given notice and a chance to stop the adoption, if he does not explicitly choose to do so within a short time period–say, two weeks–for whatever reason, even if he did not receive actual notice, then the adoption should be final and irrevocable.
11:30 am on January 28, 2005
