Blog Post #3
I felt that Steve and Jen were a great educational addition
to our regular coursework, as they reinforced themes that we have consistently
repeated throughout class. One of these themes was the superiority of
birthmothers and adopted children’s rights, at the expense of the rights of the
birthfathers. Steve and Jen focused on the development of their personal
relationship, however, throughout their discussion it was clear that Steve had
to jump through hoops to just to get to that point. He explained how Catholic
Charities seemed to have the process “set up expecting it to fail.” He had to
get multiple permissions simply to search for his daughter, and if any one of
those permissions wouldn’t have come through, even on a whim, his request would
have been rejected. I find it puzzling and downright misguided that a
birthfather trying to search for his daughter, who had been a legal adult for
over a decade, is placed at the mercy of a birthmother who has not had a single
moment of contact with her child since giving her up. The birthmother, in this
particular case, has done nothing to earn this role of security other than
carry Jen and give birth to her. Furthermore, I was under the impression that
after adoption, all rights are transferred to the adoptive parents. In this
case, it should be Jen’s call, but if anyone is going to intervene besides her,
it should be the adoptive parents, not the birthmother. The only instance where
I could see this policy being of use would be if the child was conceived by
rape, but even then, the child would certainly have the authority to say no.
Meyer and Pertman gave a detailed account of the birthfather being statistically
eliminated from contact with the child; Steve and Jen reinforced the idea in a
real life context.
A second
theme that I felt was perpetuated today is the idea that if a child is given up
for adoption to a loving family, very few adoption related problems seem to
arise. We have not read about any issues resulting from this type of adoption,
and Steve and Jen strengthened this claim. Jen knew from an early age that she
was adopted, and it did not affect her well-being or upbringing whatsoever. I
will be interested to see, as the course continues, whether this type of
adoption has any identifiable downsides.
Adam K.
Graded Reply Post 3: Hailey R.
ReplyDeleteAdam, I too wrote my original blog post on this debate about birth fathers' rights. It is very obvious that many birth fathers do not have many, if any, rights regarding their biological, adopted children, which was a strong point Steve made during class. Not only do the birth fathers have extremely limited rights, but few men who conceive children in unintended situations realize that they lack these rights if they choose adoption. An additional statement made by Steve that stuck in my mind was that the adopted child may be refused access to his/her biological parents’ medical histories due to many barriers including his/her birth mother’s consent (birth father’s consent regarding only his own health information) and adoptive parents’ consent if he/she is a minor. An obvious flaw in the law is that the child’s best interest is not being upheld if he/she is denied access to this important information which could trigger a change in lifestyle choices and preventative health measures influenced by his/her family health history. For example, a life-threatening condition called malignant hyperthermia is strongly connected to genetics and could be prevented by choosing alternatives to the most common anesthetic agents used during surgical procedures in the U. S. Without biological family health history, the child could suffer a devastating condition following anesthesia administration in which the body’s metabolism rate and temperature will skyrocket, leading to death in just seconds. In addition to a lack of rights for the birth father, some of the current adoption legislation could be reconsidered to foster a more child-centered approach.
Hailey R. (2:40 class)