Adoption gets riskier in New Mexico

In sharp contrast to what went on in Michigan, a New Mexico lawsuit has the potential to significantly affect future adoptions in that state. The Michigan case centered around a man who wanted no responsibility towards the child he fathered; this case centers around a man who wants full custody of the son he fathered. The problem is, he did nothing for the mother during her pregnancy; it was only after she had given up the baby for adoption that he decided he wanted to be a part of the child's life.

A state district judge found that Mark Huddleston, the biological father, had abandoned the child through his lack of action and terminated his parental rights. Now, a state court of appeals judge reversed that decision, saying that the lower court judge "improperly focused on Mark's pre-birth conduct" and that "the court's finding that Mark presumptively abandoned the child is not supported by substantial evidence." This would be wholly uninteresting except that for the first two years of his life, the child has been living with his adoptive parents. Suddenly, this man he's never known wants to come and take him away from that?
Hal Atencio, the attorney for the adoptive parents, "It's a weak position for a man to say `I was there for the fun part, I was there for the sex, but I'm not going to be there for the responsible part. And yet I want equal rights as the mother and the right to veto an adoption even on the last day.'" Lisa Olewine, president of the Adoption and Foster Care Alliance of New Mexico, noted that the ruling "makes every adoption very risky. It's going to have a chilling and rippling effect on adoptions." Olewine added, "If a father knows there's a baby out there, they really don't have to do anything during the pregnancy. They can just show up later and claim the child. There's no permanency in this child's life."

Huddleston dismissed the possible harm that might come to the boy saying, "It's unfortunate, but we cannot as a society say we're sorry this happened but we need to leave him where he is, and we need to circumvent the natural parent's rights." I'm afraid I have to disagree with Mr. Huddleston and, based on that statement, call into question his fitness to be a parent. Raising a child is nothing more than a couple of decades of the parents giving up what they want in favor of what's best for the child. If he can't see that the ultimate sacrifice is, indeed, to let the boy stay with the only parents he's ever known, what's to keep him from being unwilling to give up other things?

Further, I think the lower court was entirely correct in its ruling. Nine months of pregnancy, alone and with neither financial nor emotional support from the father sure sounds to me like abandonment. Remember that story about the hen who found a grain of wheat and none of the other farm animals would help her make it into bread? They didn't help so they didn't get any bread; neither should this guy get a son. What do you think? Would you side with the adoptive parents or the biological father?