Quote:
|
Originally Posted by zxczxcasdasd
Thanks for sharing what you did.  We can take the rest offline at some point.
I'm just wondering what the overriding principle is for this principle, if there is one?
On one hand, the idea that my son would have to research all 50 states and sign every putative registry in existence to make sure that he retained rights to his child seems ridiculous and just wrong. And the fact that this really is the only way to be sure your child isn't placed and that most men on the planet don't even know what a putative registry is, makes the whole thing seem like a joke-- like an end-run around father's rights..."What, you didn't know you had to register as a putative father in every possible state? Well, sucks for you."
On the other hand as a woman, I know when you are carrying a child- the instinct to protect that child *no matter what* is over whelming. It would be hard for me as an expectant mother to hold "he has a right to know and be asked for consent" over the sacred duty I felt to protect my child and myself.
I'm not saying that every man that isn't notified was because he was a dangerous jerk...I'm positive there are injustices done to dads every day.
I'm just wondering how we avoid demonizing women who make hard choices like that as the mother to their child, and balance that with making sure that a man's right to raise his own child is also upheld and protected... |
I have a 20 yr old son and we too have discussed this issue. Having 2 adopted teens we have all discussed the issues surrounding pregnancies and the difficult decisions that have to be made. For our son it came down to NOT being in a position where he would have to scour the registries to make certain he wasn't losing a child. He has tried to be very responsible about not only 'protection' , but also relationship issues. He has stopped being a 'man-slut' as the kids refer to it these days.
[ edit; I just reread this and I am in no way saying your son was or is one.lol Just saying that when ours learned about tis registry, he realized it was up to him to KNOW if and when he may have become a father.]
We had a situation like the ones you have asked about. Our youngest child was adopted in a private, open adoption. After her birth,it became obvious that the fathers name on the birth certificate was incorrect. The race of the child did not match the description of the person whose name she had given. B-mom insisted it was the right name, and the child was his. As time went on, she eventually admitted that , although she had hoped it would be her boyfriends child, it did not look to be. She was upset because according to her, she was a victim of date rape. [ he later denied this aspect] However she was 15, and he was 42, at the time. So she wanted him to have nothing to do with raising the baby. [ that besides other , not so good things]
So, I was comfortable with going ahead with the adoption even though we may have had the incorrect name as the father. [ eventually we opened the adoption with the real bfather but that has since failed and I think her initial gut reaction was correct.]