Baby Jessica has come to epitomize adoption gone awry.
Who can forget that photograph of Baby Jessica being taken from her adoptive parents - the only folks she had known as a toddler - as her adoption was voided and she was placed with her natural parents?Apparently, the Utah Legislature was among those upon whom the image made a deep impression.
At issue in the Baby Jessica case was the right of the birth father, who had not given up his parental rights to the little girl because he had not been informed of the pregnancy or her birth.
A months-long, multileveled legal skirmish ensued and in the end, the judge ruled that he had a right to the child.
Last month, Utah lawmakers took steps to make sure that such a thing could not happen in Utah.
By passing SB101, the Legislature set forth specific steps that birth fathers must take in order to protect their parental interests in a child born out of wedlock.
In the past, a birth mother was expected to inform the father of the pregnancy. In the future, the burden is placed on the father. He should assume, lawmakers said, that sexual activity may result in the birth of a child. And if he wants to preserve his relationship as father, it is going to be his responsibility to file papers assuming paternity of that child. If he doesn't do so prior to the birth, he has no say in whether a child can be adopted without his permission or knowledge.
There are no comebacks. Without that paperwork, when a mother signs adoption papers, paternal rights are not an issue.
The law, lawmakers said, will make the welfare of the child the most important issue in an adoption, rather than sacrificing what might be best for the child to satisfy the people who participated in the con-cep-tion.
It was one of several issues that attempted to tackle increasingly complex - and sometimes murky - areas of family law.
In an effort to boost collection of court-ordered child support (millions of dollars due Utah children have never been collected), marriage license applications will include the Social Security numbers of both bride and groom. It's a sad fact that many marriages end in divorce and having the Social Security numbers should make it easier for custodial parents to get the child support due them.
The Legislature also amended existing child-support laws to strengthen parental liability for financial support of children who get state services. Officials estimate that welfare rolls would shrink dramatically if absent or noncustodial parents met their court-ordered financial obligations to their children. The changes also allow court-ordered genetic testing to establish paternity and boosted the state's efforts to collect from custodial parents government money spent on medical expenses for children.
The session did not, however, satisfy early predictions that this would be the year laws were significantly toughened to nab scofflaw parents who refuse to pay child support.
A bill that would have brought Utah's child-support orders in line with other states' to make it easier to collect payments from parents who move out of state never surfaced for legislative consideration before the bell sounded to end the session.
And lawmakers rejected a measure that would have suspended the driver's license or professional license of people who didn't work out a deal with the Office of Recovery Services to pay back child support.
It was an interesting debate. Opponents said that if you take away someone's license to earn a livelihood, how could he (or she) ever hope to pay off a child-support debt?
That argument ignored one thing: The bill was targeted at people who are making absolutely no effort to meet their child-support obligation.
Proponents of the measure countered that professional people faced with loss of their license would be in the ORS office bright and early to make arrangements to catch up payments.