New push for states to share birth father registries

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah lawmaker is taking another turn at getting other states to share information regarding the interests of biological fathers in adoption proceedings.

Vital information, including birth and death records, as well as some health care information, is already shared among states when necessary, so "it is not a new concept to share with other states," said Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake City, who is pushing for an interstate compact for putative fathers, or an unmarried biological father of a child.

Robles proposed the draft legislation in the Health and Human Services Interim Committee meeting Wednesday, and the committee unanimously supported both the bill presenting a compact and an accompanying resolution to encourage other states to participate in the sharing of information.

The idea is that fathers who are interested in playing a part in their child's life can register that interest in any state. Each participating state, however, would also have to approve the process in their own state legislature.

"The aim would be to make it easier to check putative registries to protect all concerned — the child, the adoptive parents and the biological parents," Utah's registrar, Janice Houston, told a legislative committee in March.

In Utah, unmarried men who believe they may have fathered a child and want to start the process of preserving their parental rights can file a “Notice of Commencement of Paternity Proceeding” with the state Office of Vital Records and Statistics within the Utah Department of Health. About 50 putative fathers have done so each of the past three years.

Unless the father knows which state a woman will give birth to their child, as states have very different laws, he would likely have to register in many states to maintain his rights or intent to parent the child or lose it to adoption, sometimes against his knowledge.

The compact would not change or make alterations to current Utah adoption law, but it would create a mechanism to share information with other states through existing technology.

"One of the goals of this bill is to help protect adoptive parents and children from disruptions later in life," Robles said. "This legislation would also help putative (biological) fathers who want to take responsibility for the children they have fathered by streamlining information. It would also help adoption attorneys. This bill is about making people's lives better by using technology to share information."

Robles' first attempt at the compact failed to pass in the Utah House earlier this year, but the Senate approved its content. Email: wleonard@deseretnews.com Twitter: wendyleonards