What if the Election Was Being Run on Fathers’ Rights?

I love my twitter friends right now. I’ve got liberals. I’ve got conservatives. I’ve got people trying to make us talk about anything other than politics. Like puppies! But, as a woman and mother totally fed up with how our country is handling certain things right now, the political back-and-forth is really piquing my attention.

Lisa Stone, tweeting for @BlogHer today, retweeted this question from @pattidigh ,

looking forward to the day when the nation debates a candidate’s choices as a father.

Can I get an amen? (BlogHer “AMEN-ed” it in her retweet.) I knew nothing about pattidigh prior to starting my click throughs from twitter to her blog. Apparently she’s got a book coming out. And her blog subject is really quite interesting. (In fact, I just subscribed.) I’m not so sure how this blogger and author hit the nail on the head with what I’ve been thinking over the past few days, but, well, she did!

You can bebop all over the internet to find posts about a woman’s right to choose, the arguments for or against and commentary on whether Palin’s daughter was really offered choice. But, just like there’s no discussion on the current adoptee fight for the Original Birth Certificates, there’s no discussion of father’s rights. More specifically, there’s no discussion of the ethics (or, rather, lack thereof) behind putative father registries.

In fact, I know readers that just popped in here that have no attachment to adoption just said, “Putative what?”

The vast majority of people in our country have no knowledge of putative father registries and why they are so damning to fathers. To explain, a “putative father” is “a man who may be a child’s father, but who was not married to the child’s mother before the child was born and has not established that he is the father in a court proceeding.” To put this simply, a putative father is a man who has had sex with a woman to whom he has not married. No, seriously. That’s how the putative father registries are working.

And example. Jane and John are dating but not married. Their relationship is physical. They break up. She finds out a month or so later that she is pregnant. She doesn’t tell John. She also doesn’t name him on the birth certificate and places their baby for adoption. He finds out only after a friend runs into her, months later. He has no recourse because he lives in a state (like Ohio) that has a Putative Father Registry. Since he did not sign the registry upon having sex with Jane, he has no rights to the child that was born.

Crazy, right? Follow this very interesting series by a law student in Ohio. To best sum it up:

“Does that mean that to ensure full protection of his rights, an unwed man must sign the registry every time he has sex with a new partner?” I asked the Professor.

The professor didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Nothing is being done to help fathers whose rights are being trampled upon by unethical agencies, attorneys and mothers who are aware of this little Fathers Don’t Matter clause. In fact, if you read Cody’s story, you find out that certain agencies and mothers (unethical ones, anyway) are willing to go out of their way (and out of their states) to make sure that fathers dont’ have rights. Sadly, Cody’s story isn’t unique. You can read about other cases and stories here. It seems that fathers who have been wronged in this manner are joining forces. Yet, no one listens. Or even knows about their stories. Or their plight. Or how it can happen to your sons.

But both Presidential candidates want to make it easier to adopt. No one has said one word about looking into the unethical practices of adoption as they currently exist. No one has mentioned stories like Cody’s and how putative father registries which, when written about in mainstream media, are supposed to “protect” father’s rights are only serving to harm these same fathers. No one has mentioned a word about the adoptees fighting for their birth certificates. No one has mentioned the unethical agencies who are preying on young, pregnant mothers. No one has mentioned how easy it remains for adoptive parents to be scammed as we’re still in a system that allows potential families to pay for things, above or under the table. No one has mentioned anything other than “making it easier.” (Then again, with McCain’s unethical adoption, that doesn’t surprise me.)

Fathers do have rights. Fathers should have rights. I’m not going to get into an abortion debate on this one as its out of my league. Instead, and especially when it comes down to adoption, fathers are getting the short end of the stick. They are told, point blank, that they don’t matter enough.

When America starts discussing this over their supper tables (and not just Americans touched by adoption), I will know we have finally made some progress. Until then, be sure to check the laws in your state and remind your sexually active sons to register each and every time they have sex with a female. (Eight states don’t acccept ignorance of the child’s existence as an excuse.) Your hypothetical grandchild, at this point, depends on it.