This is the reason why we call Adoption Bewareness month. Everyone needs to beware of the dark side of adoption. It exists. The adoption industry is not out to protect anyone but themselves. Adoptive parents, they want your money. Natural parents, they want your baby. Adoptees, they just love to spit in your face because they view you as a commondity.
Here is the story and here is the link.
Reporter: Suzanne Hobbs
Man Loses Son in Adoption Without His Consent
Posted: Nov 6, 2008 04:28 PM
Imagine looking forward to the birth of your first child and then, having that baby given to another family for adoption without your consent.
It happened to one local father and he took his fight all the way to the Idaho State Supreme Court, and lost. Now, with no rights to the son he never knew, he's sharing his message with others so it won't happen again.
It's hard to imagine this can happen, and it's very frustrating to Tyson Sherwood who says he and his fianceé were engaged with a baby on the way. Then, months before she gave birth, she broke off the engagement and all communication. He didn't know his baby was born, and adopted out until it was too late.
Somewhere out there is a son Tyson Sherwood will never get to raise, because he didn't follow a law that few people know about.
Tyson Sherwood: "I feel pretty helpless and I think it's an unfair law and the whole point of this interview so other people don't get hurt by it so that other potential fathers know about the registry."
He's talking about the Putative Father's Registry. Tyson's attorney who worked on this case is Allen Browning.
Allen Browning: "The Putative Father's Registry is a list of people who claim to be the father of a particular child and that's the only way a father can protect his rights to be a father to a child to keep that child from being adopted without his consent."
Tyson says his pregnant ex-fianceé refused any contact after she broke it off. He says he called the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to know what to do. He says he was never told about the registry and informed he had to wait to assert his rights after the birth.
Allen Browning: "The problem he had was that he didn't know when the baby was going to be born or where the baby was going to be born and hospitals were not about to tell him so he was kind of stuck."
Tyson was shocked to learn several weeks too late, that his son had been adopted and his rights were gone.
Tyson's ex-fiance' spoke to NBS News Channel Six phone. She did not want to be identified in this story. She said she had concerns about Tyson raising a child, and said it wasn't the best time for having a baby so she put him up for adoption because it was in the best interest of the child.
Allen Browning: "The mother didn't want to raise the child, but she didn't want Tyson to have any part of the child either and it's sad that the system that we have right now allows that to happen."
Tyson took his case to the local courts and was denied. He even appealed to the Idaho State Supreme Court, with no success. Just because his name was never on a state registry he didn't know about.
Tyson Sherwood: "When the supreme court told me that it ain't gonna happen I just had to pick up and move on and put my life back together."
The baby was adopted through LDS Family Services. Claigh Jensen is the agency director.
Claigh Jensen: "He was not identified and we knew nothing of Tyson until after his court documents were filed."
Tyson and his attorney disagree. They say LDS Family Services was told by the mother she wanted Tyson left out of the process. Jensen says the law was followed.
Claigh Jensen: "A mother, according to Idaho law, has a right to privacy and therefore she can ask us not to contact any men, concerning the potential father of the child and we have to respect that."
There is hope that the adoptive family will at least come forward through LDS Family Services and share a picture of Tyson's son, and some basic information on the baby who is now about 19 months old.
The Putative Father's Registry can be reached at Idaho Vital Statistics at (208) 334-5980 or by logging on to www.healthandwelfare.idaho.gov.
3 comments:
I don't understand how you can blame this on LDS Family services. They council with the birth mothers to help them through a tough choice. There efforts are to support them in whatever choice they make, not make it for them. They can't force them to do anything just council with them. They can explain the laws to them, which your stating correctly in your explanation. It sounds like the headline should be "Health and Welfare employee misguides birth father - who loses is rights." The fight should be with the state to change the law not pointing fingers at a agency that can only follow the laws.
Put the blame where it obviously belongs. Don't try to change the story to fit an agenda.
This is SO ridiculous and I am SO sick of it. Children need to BE WITH THEIR REAL PARENTS. And America doesn't need some psychotic religion that says Real Parents don't exist and only Adopted Parents do. This freedom of religion crap has gone way, way, to far in this country. No one has right to rip familiies apart because of some relgion. No one has a right to hurt Fathers, Mothers or children either, due to (whacko) religious beliefs. It is time we demand laws and petition the hell out of the government that no religion that destroys the family unit has legal rights to do so. We need to create laws for Fathers BEFORE their child's birth to protect them from the scamming Adoption Agencies pull on them, because no women has a right to hurt her child either through Adoption to hurt her child's Father. No women either, has the right to hurt the man who impregnated her like this either. God, babies, aren't war tools-Grow up. No group of people deserve the right to ruin other people's lives either because of some self appointed freedoms that cost others their God given freedom and right to keep their own children. Being raised by your single Dad is much more healthy too, then pretending you came from barren people, because the latter is pyschotic at worst and mocking at best. Thanks for this story Amy.
Anon,
I can easily blame LDS Family Services because they are the ones that encourage the mothers to hide and jump states. I know this to be true in a majority of cases involving fathers. They intentionally hide the information from the fathers. Just google Shawn McDonald. In his case, they got slammed with a complaint against them by the father. It is on their record here in Texas. They intentionally kept his child from him. The agency was fined $100,000 in court costs on the part of the father which they paid. He also won his tort lawsuit against them of $650,000. They asked him to drop his appeal but he did not. They use these laws to intentionally hide information from fathers. I blame them with the fury of an angry adoptee.
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