‘We’ve got to acknowledge some men abandon kids, and support men willing to raise a kid who isn’t theirs’
Garrett Luttrell, a paralegal and a reader, writes:
An interesting court case about fathers' rights and particularly single fathers' rights is Quilloin v Walcott, 434 U.S. 246 (1978). Some of this may be relevant to Virginia’s ‘unwed potential father’ registry, since this case involves an unwed father who was denied the right to prevent his child from being adopted.
The child was born in 1964 to unwed parents, and the parents’ relationship ended shortly after. In 1976, Mother married; she and her husband immediately petitioned for the husband to adopt the child (this was in Georgia). Father tried to stop the adoption, and for the first time, tried to get visitation. (Child support was never an issue, and Father had sporadically sent money and gifts, and occasionally spent time with the child)
Under Georgia law at that time, if a child was born to married parents, both parents had the same parental rights. In the case of a child born to unwed parents, if the father had not legitimized the child, “the mother [was] the only recognized parent and [was] given exclusive authority to exercise all parental prerogatives.”
To legitimize a child, a father must have, “married the mother and acknowledged the child,” or he must have obtained, “a court order declaring the child legitimate.” In this case, Father had not legitimized the child, so Mother was the only legal parent – making her the only person whose consent was required to go forward with the adoption.
The lower court allowed the adoption, and Father appealed, lost, and appealed again to the Georgia Supreme Court. That court, ruling on Father’s Due Process and Equal Protection claims, also allowed the adoption.
The US Supreme Court addressed Father’s argument that he was denied ‘Due Process’ and ‘Equal Protection’ because the ‘best interests of the child’ doctrine violated the ‘Due Process’ standard, and that he did not have the same right to veto the adoption as a married father would have. (Father or his attorney seem to have forgotten to argue about gender discrimination on earlier appeals, so the SC did not address those arguments even though they were raised. That’s normal, but unfortunate).
On the ‘Due Process’ claim, the SC decided that the “best interests of the child” doctrine did not violate ‘Due Process’ because Father had not sought or exercised custody of the child, and that the adoption would keep the child with his current family, keeping everyone, except for Father, happy. Finally, the SC pointed out that Father had notice and a hearing on legitimacy, the adoption, and the child’s ‘best interests.’
Father also claimed that he was treated differently than a married, separated, or divorced father. The SC argued that a married father would have, at some point, had some responsibility for the child, whereas the unwed father in this case has never had – or sought – responsibility (only visits, never custody) for the child, nor has he ever had obligations.
The SC agreed with the Georgia courts, and allowed the adoption to go through.
I have mixed feelings on this one. While our current legal environment discourages fathers from becoming involved, how many fathers out there would never try? There are a great many details missing from this case, though I haven’t looked at the decisions of the lower courts yet.
We know that fathers don’t abandon their kids nearly as often as our culture believes, but we’ve got to acknowledge that it happens occasionally, and support men who are willing to step in and raise a child that is not their biological child. I’ve got a question for Glenn’s readers – where do we draw the lines between parenting, alienation, and abandoning?
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