Adoptive parents lose rights in Florida court case, TV show

Through Murky Water

The adopted star of Fox’s "Who’s Your Daddy?" reality television show correctly picked her biological father from a field of contestants Monday, mercifully sparing viewers the gut-wrenching tragedy of an incorrect choice.

My first impression of the show is that it was fake – a contrived show, cast entirely by actors. The only basis I have for this conclusion is what I believe to be the improbability of the whole ordeal. I simply — perhaps naively — refuse to believe that any adopted child would go through such potential trauma in order to meet his or her biological parents.

The show, however, strikes a sharp blow at the institution of adoption. When a parent gives a child up for adoption, it is an acknowledgement that they either do not want or cannot care for the child and so are giving up their parenthood. The relationship between an adopted child and his or her birth parents is one that should be approached cautiously, not sensationally. Fox’s show trivialized both this relationship and minimized the importance of the adoptive parents.

Legally, adoptive parents become the parents of their child. The biological parents surrender all rights and obligations to the child and are supposed to then have nothing more to do with the child.

Unfortunately, the information age has given both sides the resources to track each other down. In many cases, this doesn’t cause a problem and everyone leaves with some semblance of closure. Sometimes, however, a biological parent changes his or her mind, decides adoption was a mistake and that the child should go home to his or her "real" mom or dad.

Recently, in Jacksonville, Fla., a biological mother won custody of her child after giving him up for adoption when he was born three and a half years earlier. The adoption had never been completed — the biological father, who never married the mother, filed a motion to stop the adoption one month before it was completed, in 2001. When the court ruled that the father could stop the adoption, the mother put her own bid back in to reclaim the child and prevent the father from gaining custody.

This series of rulings — first, that the father could contest the adoption of the child and, later, that the boy had to be removed from the place he had called home for three and a half years — hurts the institution of adoption more than "Who’s Your Daddy?" ever could. While the television show merely ignores the adoptive parents, the Jacksonville ruling could set a legal precedent for taking children from their adoptive parents if a biological parent changes his or her mind.

While stories of children saying "You’re not my real mom!" abound, legally an adoptive parent is the "real" parent — as far as the judicial system is concerned, a change of heart by the biological parent should be considered a minor inconvenience. The extenuating circumstance in Jacksonville was that the adoption was never actually made official — the father, who was not living with the mother at the time, decided he wanted to keep the child. In this case, the mother’s wishes should have been the final word. The father was in no way obligated to care for the mother as they were not married or divorced.

Normally, a father’s rights should be held as sacred as a mother’s, but when the father has not taken responsibility for both mother and child, he should not be permitted to take the child from his or her mother.

Adoption is a noble act and it must be hoped that court actions in the future do not discourage families from adopting children by taking these children away from them. It would be irresponsible and damaging to the basis of family in this country if they did.

Alex Sirney is a sophomore anthropology/SMAD major.