Confronting a conundrum: the Uniform Adoption Act.

• Author: McCabe, John M.

Anybody who has read a newspaper or watched television news over the last two years will know that adoption of children has risen to the top of public consciousness. We read disturbing stories about Baby Jessica, Baby Pete and, most recently, Baby Richard. The single theme connecting these cases is the struggle between birth and adoptive parents when something goes wrong. These cases expose some of the obvious problems of adoption law, not the least of which is the great lack of uniformity among the states.

The uniform law commissioners are walking directly into the maelstrom. During their 1994 annual meeting, they approved a new Uniform Adoption Act (1994), ending an extensive five-year project.

The new uniform act strives to be comprehensive. But adoption law is controversial at every point. Every issue is passionately contested. The objective of a comprehensive uniform act, therefore, can only be a reasonable resolution somewhere between polarized interests.

The new act tries to reach three major goals. The first is a resolution of the private vs. agency placement issue. Private placement adoptions, which often rely on less experienced staff, are most prone to serious mistakes in the process. The Baby Jessica and Baby Pete cases involved private placement agencies. Some pundits advocate their abolition. But agency placement also is criticized for the inefficiency and delay endemic to the bureaucracy.

The uniform act attempts to remedy the deficiencies of both. It requires evaluation (by professionals the court recognizes as experts) of prospective adoptive parents for private placements of children. The majority of private placement states currently do not require these evaluations. The act also attempts to streamline agency adoptions.

The second major objective of the uniform act is to diminish the potential for struggle between birth and adoptive parents. Current state rules governing consents to adoption for private placement, relinquishment of children to agencies for adoption and termination of parental rights share inconsistency, obscurity and inadequacy.

The act requires that birth parents be given information on the process and effect of adoption before they can relinquish a child. It gives birth parents 120 hours to reconsider a consent or relinquishment of a newborn. The goal is to make sure that birth parents understand what they are doing before they give up a child. After the allotted time has lapsed without rescission, the...