Adoptive Parents Fear That Recent Cases Erode Rights

ROSEMOUNT, Minn. —  In Michigan, the case of baby Jessica focused national attention on the legal rights of birth parents versus those of adoptive parents.

In California, because of a shift in state law, Peggy and John Stenbeck may see their 2 1/2-year-old adopted son given to his biological father, who declared before the boy was born that he wanted to raise him.

A third case, in Minnesota, could prove to be even more troubling to adoptive parents. It appears to erode their legal standing by suggesting that a judge can set aside a state law designed to protect their rights.

On July 21, adoptive parents Laura and Rusty Winkler lost the 5-month-old boy they had lived with and cared for since he was 3 weeks old. It happened because a county judge here allowed a birth father to withdraw a voluntary adoption consent form after the 10-day legal time period in which he could change his mind.

Across the country, a patchwork of conflicting and ambiguous state laws leave adoptive parents wondering how secure their children really are.

An Ann Arbor, Mich., group is fighting back. The Jessica DeBoer Committee for the Rights of the Child is trying to get state laws changed to give adoptive parents stronger legal standing and incorporate the best interests of children in decisions.

“Biological parents have all the rights,” group spokeswoman Richetta VanSickle said. “ . . . Right now biology supersedes everything.”

The Uniform Commission on State Laws is considering drafting a model act on adoption that could help standardize laws, said Madelyn Dewoody, general counsel at the Child Welfare League of America, in Washington, D.C. States now enforce change-your-mind periods ranging from 48 hours to six months or a year, and many have vague laws regarding fathers’ rights.

“There’s been a chipping away for 20 years at the permanency of adoption, or at least an attempt to chip away at it by anti-adoption groups,” said Mary Beth Seader, vice president of the National Council for Adoption in Washington, D.C.

Small but active groups are counseling families that they will never recover from giving up their children for adoption, she said. “They believe their purpose in life should be to end adoption as we know it,” Seader said.

Nevertheless, the number of American infant adoptions has remained steady at 25,000 to 30,000 each year, Seader said. But some would-be adoptive parents are turning overseas. Seader cited a General Accounting Office study showing that 10% of parents who adopted overseas did so because they did not trust the permanence of domestic adoptions.

In the Minnesota case, Laura Winkler said the judge said he would allow the birth father to withdraw his consent to adopt because it was not “far enough” past the 10-day period.

“Ten days has to mean 10 days,” Winkler said during an interview in her home in Rosemount, a suburb of Minneapolis. “If it doesn’t, what does it mean? Does it mean five years? . . . If it doesn’t mean anything, no adoptive parent can sleep.”

The Winklers have filed an appeal that will be heard by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Having tried to adopt since 1989, the Winklers were selected by the 17-year-old birth mother in March. They named the baby Cooper and Laura quit her job to care for him full time.

“From March 18 until May 19 our life was a joy,” she said. “We had our family intact, our little boy we had always wanted.”

They understood that the adoption papers were irrevocable and were waiting to have the adoption finalized when they were told that the birth father now wanted to claim the child.

The ensuing court hearings have left them with no baby and their savings wiped out by legal fees.

“How could this happen when all we wanted was to love a baby?” Laura Winkler asked, sobbing.