Rights of Biological Fathers and Putative Father Registry

On my post, Putative Father Registries, I shared a story about one of my readers who did not find out about his birthdaughter’s existence until she was 13 years old. By state law, he had no legal right to notice about the child’s adoption because he was not aware of the pregnancy.

Long-time reader John posted the following comment:

Faith, it certainly sounds like he had no right to know of his daughter legally, so there could be no challenge to the adoption. The father should have a right to know of the birth of his child, but this state seems to fit with the idea that some states have the babies are the exclusive property of the mother. Certainly that was the thinking years ago, and oddly it fits well with the argument that abortion is purely a woman’s choice, she is the only affected person. You have a great deal of wisdom Faith, what would you think this father should have now in terms of rights with his daughter, visitation, other contact, or none? I am not a fan of required birthparent contact after adoption, but this one stumps me, what would be fair and right? John

John raises a very difficult question. What would be equitable in this situation?

Before I answer the question, I will start by saying that I believe that biological fathers have the right to know about the existence of their children. I believe that letting a man know that he has a biological child is the morally right thing to do.

My one exception is that I would support keeping a biological father in the dark if he was abusive. For example, if a man conceives a child through rape, I believe he waives the right to know about the biological child. This is for the safety of the child. We have too many children being abused as it is. I am all for anything that will protect a child from an abuser.

However, this is outside of the scope of this discussion. We have no reason to believe that the reader who posted his story would have been anything short of a great father.

So, I believe that, from a moral standpoint, the birthmother should have informed the biological father about the pregnancy. If she had, then he could have signed with the putative father registry and then sought custody of his daughter.

All that being said, that is not where we are today. We have a biological father who just found out that he has a 13-year-old daughter. He never knew she existed, so he (obviously) never actively waived his parental rights. We also have a 13-year-old child who presumably is unaware of whom her birthfather is. She has been living with her adoptive parents for thirteen years. They are the only parents she has ever known. We also have adoptive parents who presumably did everything right. They complied with the law, and a judge determined many years ago that due process of the law was upheld. How do we unravel this mess today?

In my opinion, the best interest of the child must always come first. By the time a child is thirteen years old, I believe the best interest of the child is for her to stay in her adoptive home. While I sympathize with the biological father, his daughter’s needs must come first. No 13-year-old girl needs to be ripped out of her home to go live with a “stranger” who happens to share her genes. This would be traumatizing to the child. She also does not need a drawn out court battle in which she lives in fear about whether she will lose the only home she has ever known.

As a judge, I would provide the child and the biological father with full contact information on the child’s 18th birthday. After the child is an adult, then she can decide for herself how much, if any, contact she wants to have with her biological father. This will be an adult making an adult decision about her life versus a third-party making these decisions for her.

Photo Credit: Lynda Bernhardt

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