Birth father rights

In most states, birth fathers are given a certain amount of time to contest the adoption. If he does not contest in that time, his rights are automatically terminated. When I placed my birth daughter, the bio father was very against it. However, he was also refusing to help financially. He never signed his rights away, but he never went to court against the adoptive parents either. The adoption was finalized with no issues. So in most cases the birth dad doesn't actually have to sign to have his rights terminated.However, if he does contest the adoption in court and win (which really doesn't happen very much) the birth mother can either be forced to parent or give the birth dad full custody.

I'm glad that it's that way. A lot of time the birth father takes off or just cuts it communication entirely. It makes sense that the courts would proceed if it goes uncontested.

Yeah, there's no way most of the adoptions that happen would go as smoothly as they do if the birth father absolutely had to sign, because much of the time he's not around. I think he should be given a shot to contest if he wants, but if he knows what's going on and doesn't do anything about it, that's as good as signing (though slightly less honorable) in my book.