Weak Utah Adoption Bills Supposedly to Affirm Father’s Rights UPDATED

By on 2-10-2012 in Domestic Adoption, Father's Rights, Utah

Weak Utah Adoption Bills Supposedly to Affirm Father’s Rights UPDATED

Larry S. Jenkins (yes THAT guy DesiSmileys.com) helped to write one of them. We are FOR Father’s rights bills, but they need to be written to force notice, not give an option to give notice AND they need to be applied for both in-state AND out-of-state potential fathers. Currently neither the proposed House or Senate Bills have either of these two things.

”  SB55, sponsored by Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, says a birth mother, adoption agency or attorneys involved may send a “prebirth notice” to any presumed father informing him of a potential adoption proceeding in Utah. HB308, sponsored by Rep. Christine Watkins, D-Price, would require such notices, but only to out-of-state fathers.

Each bill gives the father 30 days to respond to the notice by acting to protect his rights in Utah; failure to respond in that time period would extinguish any right to object to the adoption. Watkins’ bill would eliminate the need for a father to take court action before he can file with the state’s Putative Father Registry, while Weiler’s bill would keep in place the current requirement that an unwed father file a paternity action in court before he can file with the registry. He must do both to be entitled to notice under Utah’s current adoption law.”
” Weiler’s bill also adds that an unwed father has “at least” one business day after a child’s birth to act to protect his rights, language aimed at addressing a 2007 Utah Supreme Court decision that found it was unconstitutional to not allow extra time when a birth occurs on a weekend or holiday.
[oh Wow! ONE EXTRA DAY?! How generous of you! Angry]
Weiler’s bill was crafted with help from attorney Larry Jenkins, chairman of the Utah Adoption Council’s standards and practice committee. Jenkins, who is being sued by a Virginia father who alleges a vast conspiracy exists in Utah to take children from unwed biological fathers, was unavailable for immediate comment Friday.”

Dueling bills address giving unwed fathers notice of adoption
[Salt Lake Tribune 2/5/12 by Brooke Adams]

Lawmakers met on Thursday February 9, 2012 and after two hours of debate, they voted 5-3 to hold the bill while they “tweak” the HB308 bill.

Lawmakers again hold controversial birth-father bill
[Salt Lake Tribune 2/9/12 by Sheila McFarland]

Find February 2, 2012 version of SB 55 in this pdf here.

Find Substitute Bill SB 55 from February 8, 2012 in this pdf here.

Find HB308 from February 9, 2012 in this pdf here.

One of the commenters on the February 5 article refers to the group known as FACET (Father And Children for Equal Treatment). They claim that they have been “denied a public meeting place at every step, public libraries, the county building at 2100 so. State, we have been denied ‘non-profit’ status by the judiciary, we have been repeatedly protested by the wealth and influence National Organization of Women, ignored the A.C.L.U , we have been denied Our and OUR children basic right of visitation backed up by local law enforcement and courts.”

Yikes! What country is Utah in again?

Major reform is still needed in Utah.

Update: Wes Hutchins, president-elect of Utah Adoption Council, did consult on Watkin’s bill, which was HB 308. See Utah adoption bill aims to give unwed fathers more protections  [Salt Lake Tribune 1/27/12 by Brooke Adams]That is the one that is WEAKER and narrower than the one that Larry Jenkins help craft as it only applies to out-of-state fathers. Now Wes Hutchins has resigned his position on the Utah Adoption Council. He now claims to have seen the light and will help fathers but he was really forced to resign for his undercover operations that focused  on birthmothers and greedy agencies  (his competition). Hutchins was hired by Christopher Carlton and is claiming to start a new organization for father’s rights. We will see.

“Wes Hutchins was to serve another month as president of the Utah Adoption Council (UAC) — a group consisting of adoption agencies, adoption attorneys, families, and birth mothers and fathers. Instead, he’s founded a new nonprofit organization he says will work in the best interests of all parties in adoptions.

There was certainly friction in Tuesday’s council meeting, as some representing adoption agencies accused Hutchins of having his own agenda. In turn, he pointed fingers at them for not acting ethically in administering adoptions.”

“”I’m an adoption attorney. I’ve done over 1,080 adoptions, (and) finalized six adoptions on Friday of last week alone,” Hutchins said, following the meeting. “I’m a big proponent of adoptions, but I firmly believe they need to be done legally, constitutionally and ethically.” [Except if the father LIVES in Utah, though, right?]

Hutchins pointed to what he calls “egregious cases of fraud,” namely: the case of Christopher Carlton, who was told by the birth mother that his child had died, and the case of Robert Manzanares, who was told by the birth mother she was traveling from Colorado to Utah to visit relatives when she was actually giving up their child.

These cases, and many like them, provide evidence, Hutchins said, that birth mothers should be held accountable.

“That’s one of the changes that we need to make: that fraud is no longer accepted as a method of taking a child from one home, destroying a family, and placing (the child) in another home to create another family,” he said.

That opinion conflicts with others who sit on the UAC.

“Wes has had a different vision of what’s best for children in the state of Utah,” said attorney David Hardy, also a former president of the UAC.

Hardy, whose clients include adoption agencies and adoptive parents, said Hutchins isn’t as focused on what’s best for the child.”

Utah Adoption Council president resigns amid fathers’ rights controversy
[KSL 5/8/12 by Lori Pritchard]

“”Whether you like it or not, birth fathers are part of that equation,” he said in his letter. “Whether you admit it or not, many agencies continue to engage in unethical and unlawful practices including post-placement cash bonuses paid directly to birth moms, and coaching birth moms to lie and even defraud birth fathers regarding the birth mother’s true intentions.”

Kevin Broderick, president-elect, will step in early to replace Hutchins, said attorney David Hardy, past president of the organization. The council was founded in 1981 and its 50 or so members include adoption agency representatives, attorneys, state officials, birth and adoptive parents, and adoptees.
“Wes has pushed for some things that he hasn’t been able to persuade others to go along with and gotten frustrated,” Hardy said.
Hardy said some members were upset about surreptitious recordings Hutchins made of adoption agency workers, as well as the public stance he took during the last legislative session on a bill — opposed by the council — that would have required that birth fathers receive notice of pending adoptions.
“Wes was out on an island on that one,” Hardy said.
While the council is concerned about any allegations of baby selling, “his methods got in the way of the message he would like to share,” Hardy said.
Hardy acknowledged one UAC member has proposed an amendment to the group’s bylaws, that was in “some ways” directed at Hutchins, that would allow it to terminate a member for “failure to act in a civil fashion” at its meetings and public criticism of UAC, among other things.
“UAC is designed to be an adoption education and advocacy group and there was some feeling we could not function if we had to spend all our time dealing with infighting,” Hardy said.
Hutchins said what the group failed to do, however, was apply best practices and ethical standards to its members.
“Agencies should be 100 percent truthful and ethical all the time, and it should not matter if it is a ‘secret shopper’ calling or a birth mother,” he said. “The secret shopper is a well-known standard among business industries to check on customer service practices and whether employees are following procedures.”
Last summer, Hutchins had his wife pose as the sister of an expectant woman who was considering placing her baby for adoption. She taped interviews with several Utah adoption agencies that revealed some workers were coaching birth moms on how to keep birth fathers out of the process, discussing post-placement cash payment, and how laws favored them in Utah.
Hutchins repeated the exercise this spring, in some cases using actual expectant mothers, and said he found little had changed, with workers at some agencies promising cash and urging birth mothers to “tell the birth father anything after you give birth … it might be easier to tell birth father that you were in an accident, and the baby died.”
Hardy said UAC has had some discussion on the allegations brought forth by Hutchins, but said “most of what he came forward with initially” involved entry-level personnel and their responses to hypothetical situations versus “anything actually going on.”
But in at least one case, a birth father received some types of misinformation Hutchins claims to have recorded recently. “

Rift in Utah Adoption Council leads president to resign
[Salt Lake Tribune 5/9/12 by Brooke Adams]

 

REFORM Puzzle Piece
Corruption2

One Comment

  1. theadoptedones February 10, 2012 at 6:42 pm

    I think Utah should simply be banned from processing adoptions – you know like banning a country under the Hague convention. That would be a headline I would stand up and cheer.

    Apparently I am being grumpy today. Never mind me – I just have only a wee bit of hope for the better bill to pass "as is".

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *