Utah is working to become part of an interstate compact that will help preserve the rights of birth fathers as well as stop the rise of contested adoptions once the adoptee is settled within the family. Unanimously approved by the Utah Legislature’s House Business and Labor Committee, the bill creates a compact for states to share vital records.
For men who voluntarily join the birth father registry, this allows them the opportunity to share their vital information with various states. Not knowing for sure which state the birth mother resides in, if a man believes he is the birth father of a child, this is the first step for him to preserve his parental rights. Too often a child is placed for adoption and settled within a family before the birth father can even locate which state the child is in. By then, it would be detrimental to the child to have his home life disrupted.
Representative Jacob Anderegg is a sponsor of the bill. He is also an adoptive father who is anxious to support any measure that would ensure non-disruption of adoptions.
This bill will not change adoption laws already in force, nor will it alter the state’s putative birth father registry process. What it will do is provide a way for men in Utah to have their vital information shared with other states in the compact and vice versa.
More on this bill may be read at the Deseret News.
