I haven’t seen many details on the Delaware case I posted the other day. But one fact is clear: the non-mother in same sex couple did not do a second party adoption. If she had done an adoption, she would have the same parental rights as the woman who went to Kazakhstan to adopt the child in the first place. With a second party adoption, there would be no case here at all. According to the story, “Delaware does allow such adoptions, and Guest intended to file those papers later.”
She “intended” to file for adoption, but never did. We can only speculate as to why.
1. Maybe she just didn’t get around to it, and there was no other reason.
2. Maybe she didn’t really want to. Maybe she only wanted to after the sexual relationship broke up, and she wanted to be vindictive. Dissolving sexual relationships can bring out the worst in people.
3. Maybe the adoptive mother decided, all things considered, that she didn’t want to allow her child to be adopted by someone else.
To those of you who are defending this Delaware law, I have a couple of questions.
1. Does it make any difference to you, which of these reasons accounts for Guest’s failure to file the adoption papers?
2. Does it make any difference to you, whether Guest had a sexual relationship with Smith or not? And if it does, explain why Guest’s sexual involvement with an adoptive mother should make her automatically a priveleged candidate for adopting her child?