Recent Court Ruling Denies Viable Father for Rights and Forces Child into Adoption

Imagine--you're seventeen, hold down a part-time job, and are successful in school.  You're on the school's football team, baseball team, and have no criminal history or history of drug use or alcohol use.  Your girlfriend gets pregnant, tells you you're the father, and you prepare accordingly to have the child raised and cared for in your home by your mother while you're in school.  The crib is assembled and the nursery is complete, a whole separate room in your parents' home for your new arrival.

Delivery day comes.  The mother of your child refuses you as the father and puts the child up for adoption.

Like most dads (regardless of age), you would go through the courts to fight for the rights to be the parent to your child--even if your girlfriend (or perhaps "ex-girlfriend" at this point) feels the child should be put in adoptive care.  Would you succeed?

Apparently not.  In a recent court ruling in Bakersfield, California, a 17-year-old father, Christian Diaz, was denied parental rights to his own child, forcing the baby into adoptive care.  A willing father was denied the chance to raise his child, just because the child's mother made a decision on her own, left his name off of the birth certificate, and persuaded hospital authorities that he wasn't the father and to keep him away from the child.

Father's rights are necessary.  Cases like this, where a fit and willing father is stepping up to the plate to be a dad, remind us that there is still a long road ahead of us.  Being with our children and raising them is a right we have, and until the courts can see this, we will continue to fight for our rights!

Read more about this hearing on Bakersfield.com.

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