An open adoption occurs when an adopted child grows up in contact with adoptive family members and birth family members. A birth father, or biological father, who is married to his child's mother, has strong legal rights during adoption proceedings. A birth father who has not married his child's mother has weaker legal rights, depending on his state's adoption laws.
History
Open adoption has existed for centuries. In the Biblical book of Exodus, the prophet Moses was adopted as an infant by an Egyptian princess, who hired his married birth mother to be his nurse.
In "Open Adoption History," Kathleen Silber, M.S.W., discusses American open adoptions before 1850, which were informal arrangements where the children, like writer Edgar Allan Poe, were simply handed over to adoptive parents. Sometimes these transfers were also registered by the courts.
"Adoptions Prior to Legal Statutes," an essay by attorneys Rita Meiser and Marcie Velen, describes how the first U.S. state adoption laws appeared after 1850. Open adoption fell out of favor between 1930 and 1970 in favor of closed records adoption, but open adoption became popular again in the 1970s.
Putative Father
Prior to the 1970s, unmarried American birth fathers had no recognized legal rights, though an unmarried birth father could gain custody of his child. President Grover Cleveland, for example, found an adoptive home for his illegitimate son when the child's widowed birth mother became an alcoholic.
The legal rights of a married birth father in an open adoption are well-protected because he is considered to be the child's father. But the law often views an unmarried birth father as a putative or possible father, who must take legal steps to prove his fatherhood.
Claiming Father's Rights
A paper, "The Rights of Presumed (Putative) Fathers," published by the federal Child Welfare Information Gateway, explains that an unmarried birth father should contact an attorney and learn the legal procedures required by his state's law to secure father's rights.
States allow unmarried birth fathers various ways to register their fatherhood, including signing up with putative father registries and filing affidavits with social services departments or courts.
Asserting Father's Rights
Once an unmarried birth father has legally acknowledged his child, he acquires the right to be notified by a court about the adoption proceedings.
A married or unmarried birth father can oppose the open adoption at this point, but then he may have to assume the child's custody or pay child support. Alternatively, he can agree to the open adoption and ask for the same rights as the birth mother in the final open adoption arrangement.
Birth Father Post-Adoption
"What is open adoption?," an article on Adoption.com, explains that there are many types of final open adoption arrangements. Some birth parents regularly trade letters and photos with the adoptive parents. Other birth parents schedule meetings with the child and the adoptive parents.
Because there are so many different state adoption laws, a married or unmarried birth father should always retain an attorney before signing any adoption papers.
