Posted on 03/19/2006 10:41:42 PM PST by Giant Conservative
Jeremiah Clayton Jones discovered that his former fiancée was pregnant just three weeks before the baby was due, when an adoption-agency lawyer called and asked if he would consent to have his baby adopted.
"I said absolutely not," said Mr. Jones, a 23-year-old Arizona man who met his ex-fiancée at Pensacola Christian College in Florida. "It was an awkward moment, hearing for the first time that I would be a father, and then right away being told, 'We want to take your kid away.' But I knew that if I was having a baby, I wanted that baby."
Mr. Jones has never seen his son, now 18 months old. Instead, he lost his parental rights because of his failure to file with a state registry for unwed fathers — something he learned of only after it was too late.
Under Florida law, and that of other states, an unmarried father has no right to withhold consent for adoption unless he has registered with the state putative father registry before an adoption petition is filed. Mr. Jones missed the deadline.
Although one in every three American babies has unwed parents, birth fathers' rights remain an unsettled area, a delicate balancing act between the importance of biological ties and the undisrupted placement of babies whose mothers relinquish them for adoption.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The good of the child is to be raised by their own father.
I agree with what you are saying JC.
Why do you think he can't do just as good , if not a better job? I agree it is best to have a Mommy and a Daddy but life isn't always fair but families manage.
A child needs a mommy AND a daddy.
And a child born out of wedlock is not a "bastard", an undeniably negative term, but rather is a child, who deserves the care of their real father.
"He should have been told."
Yeah there is really no way he could win on this one, clearly he had no ongoing relationship with the mother.
You seem anxious to get the biological father out of his child's life as quickly as you can...
Single parenthood is a fallback position. Why on earth would a so-called "father" deprive his bastard of a normal family? Because of pride. "That's MY bastard, and I ain't gonna let it have a normal family life because it's MINE. MINE MINE MINE!"
Give me a break.
Wonder how long it would take him to desert his child the same way.
No, I know that children need daddies AND mommies. BTW, have you never heard of open adoptions?
Second, the father wants to keep his child because he loves his child, and knows that his child belongs with their natural father. Why do you insist upon artificially projecting ill motivations that don't exist?
Yes it is. Look it up.
A baby is a baby. No baby should be called a "bastard". Shame on you.
The loving thing to do is to think of the child first.
Not necessarily and probalby in situations like this unlikely. Married couples looking to adopt are in a better situation to give a child a home, as firstly they are married and secondly have made the necessary preparations for children. Years ago, children born out of wedlock were routinely given up for adoption for the reasons I stated. Not today, more often then not and unfortunately to the great detriment of children.
The word is "with", as in "belongs with": the best interests of the baby is to be with their father.
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