Adoption laws do vary between states, however there are guidelines at the federal level, with a major update in 1996 with the express purpose of streamlining the process so that children would not be forced to wait years in foster and/or institutional settings while parents dilly dallied over whether or not to give up their parental rights. The goal of the law is to place a child with a family member as the first and most desirable result. Uniting/reuniting children with parents and/or family members is the first priority. However, it also makes it easier and quicker to terminate parental rights so that the child can be placed in a permanent family as soon as possible. Today if a biological father is not present to sign over his rights, and his location is not known, the law can be satisfied by placing ads in newspapers in the area where he was last known to be residing. As the letter from the agency in the linked page shows, when the father states that he is not willing to relinquish is rights, the child will not be placed for adoption. Not immediately. This does not mean an adoption will not still take place. As in this case, the father cannot demand that the mother keep the child, with no responsibility on his part, as the linked story seems to me to state. The father can state his desire to gain custody of the child, but that does not mean he will necessarily be granted custody, particularly if he has not previously had contact with the child and has not been providing for the mother and child.
My wife is a social worker. She worked for the states of Missouri and Iowa in the area of child welfare and custody. She has been part of the process reuniting families where children have been removed due to abuse or neglect, of terminating parental rights when this was not an option, and placing children in foster and adoptive homes.
We were in an adoptive situation ourselves a few years ago, making good progress toward adoption. This was a non-traditional adoption, we were attempting to adopt a minority child who was 15 at the time. As we sat in the courthouse preparing to go in for one of the hearings to terminate parental rights, as we were reviewing documents that we thought had been settled long before, the boy pops up with the information that "No, I don't have the same father as my brother." This guy, if he really was the boys father, had not had any contact with him for about 9 years, obviously having provided no support. However, the process of trying to notify him had to start at that point. The adoption never did take place, because as the boy got closer to 18 he saw no reason to be adopted by a white family, and he eventually went back to an institution. By the time he was 20 he realized he had made a huge mistake.
As Van stated, having children when you are not married puts your rights into a gray zone. If you really want kids, getting married is a great first step.
