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The story of Evan Scott is puzzling, with many key facts
in dispute. The only thing that’s clear is that the whole sorry
mess is an unnecessary tragedy.
Evan was born May 5, 2001 to
Amanda Hopkins, an unwed mother who had been beaten by
Steven White, her former boyfriend
and the child’s father. White was then in prison for the crime.
Mutual friends introduced Ms. Hopkins to
Dawn and Gene Scott, a couple who were
unable to conceive and wished to adopt. The Scotts hired an
attorney to draft the paperwork, attended Evan’s birth, and took him
home to Florida.
After that things get fuzzy. Depending on the report,
White was either informed of the pregnancy and did not respond or
did not find out about the baby until later and acted immediately.
Attorneys supposedly advised the Scotts that White did not meet the
criteria to make his consent required. Hopkins claims it had been
agreed that Evan would be returned to her if White contested the
adoption anyway, while the Scotts say there was no such arrangement.
Whatever happened, the imprisoned Mr. White decided he
was the best possible parent for Evan and started legal action
shortly after the boy went home with the Scotts. Hopkins chimed in
with her own suit, kicking off a three-year circus that ended just
before Christmas 2004 when permanent custody was granted to Ms.
Hopkins, who took Evan January 15. The ruling came from one Waddell
Wallace III, a circuit court judge who is apparently insane.
That last point is an opinion and not a clinical
diagnosis, but it should be. One need read no further than
Wallace’s comment that wrenching a 3 1/2-year-old boy from the only
parents he knows is in his “best interests” to relegate this gowned
clown to presiding over littering cases.
The judge might reasonably have doomed young Evan to
years of therapy on some other basis, though I doubt it. For
example if the Scott’s attorney blew it and Mr. White’s consent was
indeed legally required, Wallace might have ruled, “This stinks, but
my hands are tied. In the words of Charles Dickens, ‘The law is an
…’”
For the rest of the quote, try Google or your public
library. This is a family column.
If Wallace believed Hopkin’s claim that a challenge by
ex-con White voided the deal, he might have said so. Instead,
Hizzoner claimed for himself the noble high ground of the child’s
best interest, and, in doing so, joined the boy’s biological
incubator and sperm donor in pursuing his own selfish ends. If that
sounds a little Dr. Laura-ish, so be it. I am my kid’s dad – a kid
we adopted as an infant, as a matter of fact. A kid we adopted
overseas at least in part to avoid precisely this kind of judicial
shenanigans.
The face of adopted children has changed significantly
in recent decades. As the stigma of single parenthood has faded,
fewer “good girls” feel pressured to place their children. Many
children available for adoption today come from dire circumstances
or had poor prenatal care. Alcohol and drug abuse cause great harm
to many of the unborn.
The need is screaming, yet society keeps throwing up
barriers. A pregnant woman does not need the father’s consent for
an abortion but does for an adoption, making some feel coerced into
abortions they do not want. Many states are now breaking the
confidentiality once promised to birth parents, opening records to
kids they may not wish to see. Then there are the Judge Wallaces,
making rulings guaranteed to give any prospective adoptive parent
the heebie-jeebies.
Florida recently changed its consent law to make a Scott
case less likely, but it is not enough. It is time to tear down
unnecessary barriers and give those who adopt a break, not broken
hearts.
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