Utah judge voids adoption, orders girl returned to her father

Lorraine

Utah keeps calling us back--this time with a SECOND good decision where a father is fighting for the right to raise his own daughter. One of our readers noted that a judge in the notoriously conservative 4th district (think BYU) overturned an illegal adoption and is giving the adoptive family 60 days to return the child to her biological father. The agency, Adoption Center of Choice, broke Utah's own law requiring the consent and relinquishment of the legal father, Terry Achane, since he and the girl's mother were married at the time. In every state, married fathers have the right to raise their own children.

The Provo judge, while noting the birth mother had deceived her husband, the adoption agency and the prospective parents, has given the adoptive couple 60 days to give the child back. According to Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune:

"In a 48-page ruling, Judge Darold McDade said the Adoption Center of Choice’s policy of refusing to disclose any information to Terry Achane once he learned what had happened to his baby is 'utterly indefensible.'

"Salt Lake City attorneys Mark and Scott Wiser, the father/son team that represented Achane, used even stronger language for what occurred. 'This is a case of human trafficking,' said Mark Wiser. "Children are being bought and sold. It is one thing what [adoption agencies] have been doing with unmarried biological fathers. It is in a new area when they are trying to take a child away from a married father who wants to have his child."

Jared and Kristi Frei, the adoptive parents, have vowed to fight the return of the girl. At their blog, they describe the arrival of Achane’s daughter in their lives "a righteous desire blessed to fruition by God," and that they wanted to provide their adopted son, James, who is African-American, with "with a close, similar sibling." They have five other children, at least two who are adopted, according to blog.

The decision of the Provo judge comes on the heels of Utah's highest court determining in late November that a glitch in the Utah system for letting unmarried fathers register their intentions unfairly prevented Ramsey Shaud, 26, of Florida from stopping the adoption of his daughter in 2010. By a split decision (3-2), the lower court has been ordered to reconsider his petition.

COUPLE KNEW ADOPTION WAS IFFY

In the current case, the biological parents, Tira Bland and Achane, were living in Texas when the child was conceived. Their marriage was troubled, and they had gone for counseling when Achane, who is in the Army, accepted a job as a drill instructor at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. Although they had made plans for his wife and her other child to move to South Carolina, Bland said she wanted to stay in Texas to give birth, where she has family. Achane had arranged for a leave to return to Texas when the baby was born. Bland had mentioned adoption to Achane, but he said he was against it. He sent her money for utility bills and mortgage payments for their Texas home, but by mid-February, 2011, only weeks after he left for South Carolina, he was unable to reach her. He asked someone from his family to go by their home and find out what was going on. She was gone. 

She was in Utah. Two days after the birth on March 1, Bland relinquished parental rights and the infant was placed with the Freis. According to the ruling, Bland had claimed her husband had abandoned her and was not interested in raising the child. The Freis took the baby home, even though, the agency claims that they were told that the father did not know his daughter had been placed for adoption in Utah and it was likely he would contest the placement if he found out. The Freis, the judge noted in his ruling, "acknowledged this risk but decided they wanted to proceed forward with the adoptive placement anyway." Here is an agency outright admitting that they did not have the permission of legal father of the permission to have his daughter be adopted, yet they placed the child with a couple who wanted six, not five, children.

In June 2011, Bland for the first time informed her husband she had given birth in Utah and placed the child through another of Utah's grab-and-go agencies, the Adoption Center of Choice. "I was like, ‘Utah? Where is Utah?’ I’d never been to Utah, she’s never been to Utah," Achane said. "Adoption? Who does that? ... I believe she felt guilty at that point because she just made a call out of the blue."

But as is almost always the case is these stories, the adoptive parents are fighting to keep the child, whom they have named Leah. "We have not lost our conviction that we are in the right!!!!!!" Kristi Frei wrote at the blog after McDade’s Nov. 20 ruling dismissed their adoption petition. "We have only ever wanted to do right by Leah, and have always felt we have been acting in her best interest to keep her with our family and raise her as our own. Our hearts have demanded it — there has never been any question to us that she is OURS!!!"  Obviously, ownership is all in the minds of these despicable people. They took the child knowing that there might be a legal challenge, but felt in the pro-adoption culture that exists in the United States of America, and most especially Utah, that the law there would side with them. This is another example of white, wealthier people believing that it is their god-given right to take another man's child because they have more advantages. They would keep the baby, the father be damned. With this mindset, one could simply go to the local mall and pick out babies whose parents are less well-dressed, and bring them home.

'I WANT TO RAISE MY DAUGHTER'

Achane, who is ready for a future with his daughter, implored the family to drop new legal action. “If they prolong it, that is more time away from my daughter,” Achane told The Salt Lake City Tribune. “There are precious moments I can’t get back. ... There is no court order saying they have the right to my child. I just won the case," he said. "I want to get my daughter and raise my daughter,” whom he calls Teleah. He has been able to see her a couple of times.

Dead-beat dads used to make news, but these days it is fathers who want to raise their daughters that we read about, as in the Ramsey Shaud case we wrote about a few days ago. One must blame the pro-adoption bent in today's culture for these adoptions that are so questionable, but appear to be perceived by some mothers as the "right" thing to do. These stories of unnecessary separation break my heart.

George Will and all those conservatives who write about irresponsible black fathers blame them for black poverty. Yet here is an African American man who is serving his country and wants to raise his kid, and, until a judge stepped in, was about to be screwed by the adoption-centric machinery in a state where the rule of the land often reflects and codifies into secular law Mormon policy. The actions of both the people who work at the agency, their attorney Larry Jenkins, and Kristi and Jared Frei themselves, can only be called deplorable.

At their blog, the righteous, God-fearing Freis (why do so many people in the wrong call on God?) have already raised more than $20,000 to help cover their legal fees. At their blog, the Freis  have left an address where you can email them and we encourage you to do so: freiadoption@gmail.com. --lorraine

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To support Terry Achane, contact his lawyers to donate--maybe this is your holiday charitable giving.

Law Offices of Wiser and Wiser
2825 E Cottonwood Pkwy
Salt Lake City, UT 84121
801-990-1230

SOURCES: Father is ready to turn page on Utah adoption horror story 

US married father's horror after wife places his child with an adopted family without telling him

FREI BLOG: http://frei-adoption.com/Frei/Update.html

FROM FMF: "Adoption in Utah: No place for birth fathers" 
Money, not marriage, is the answer to black poverty

READING FOR SINGLE DADS:
To Be A Single Father  From the author: This book explores many of the problems, adventures, lessons, obstacles, life-learning processes, life-healing processes, and lifelong achievements and successes of raising a child as a single parent from a male's point of view. It also explores some of the major challenges and heartwarming experiences of raising a child in life today, only in my case I raised my child as a only parent due to my wife passing from breast cancer. It also embraces the successes of giving your children knowledge, support, and an undeniable belief in themselves that will prepare them to have strong self-esteem. This strong self -esteem will allow them to succeed over all life's obstacles and achieve the success they want to, no matter how high their aspirations may be. 

The author, Charles Jones, marched in one of Dr. Martin L. King's freedom marches for civil rights, and became one of the first and youngest African American television technicians in South Carolina. He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, and holds two college degrees.