By Catherine Ho | The Washington Post
A Washington-based group representing adoption attorneys is continuing a quiet but steady quest to pass a law they say will better protect the parental rights of men who may have fathered children.
The American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, an association of 360 lawyers who work on legal issues surrounding adoption, has tapped lobbyist Michaela Sims of Chamber Hill Strategies to advocate for improvements in adoption laws. One of the group’s priorities in Washington is to reintroduce a bill that Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) sponsored in the last Congress that would establish a national database known as a “putative father registry.”
Currently, at least 34 states have registries where men can register their name and contact information into a confidential database so they can be notified of any attempts to terminate their parental rights, or of adoption proceedings for children they may have fathered. The idea of the registry is to give birth fathers a chance to assert their parental rights. But there is no federal database, and the laws in each state are different.
Statement by Kaine Fisher, head of RLG Family Law Dept.: “The idea of a unified database which could potentially notify a putative father about attempts by someone to sever his parental rights is appealing. States need to be working together on these types of issues. There needs to be more effective and efficient methods among states to disseminate and obtain information involving important issues such as this.
“That said, however, I suspect a majority of these attempted severances involve fathers who do not necessarily want to be found. Many may be avoiding a hefty child support obligation or simply don’t have a desire to maintain a relationship with the child. In these cases, the unified database may not accomplish what it is intended to accomplish – that is speeding up the process for adoption/severance actions and affording fathers an opportunity to have due process and an opportunity to be heard.
If you’d like to discuss family law, contact with Kaine Fisher, head of RLG’s Family Law Department, kfisher@roselawgroup.com.
