Fathers and Families Board member Robert Franklin, Esq. criticized the Utah Supreme Court’s decision in the Wyatt adoption case on the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson Show on Monday, August 21. According to Talkers Magazine, Larson has an audience of 2.25 million listeners, and his show is heard on over 200 stations nationwide.
In the Wyatt case, Virginia father John Wyatt lost his child in a Utah adoption despite a court order that found him to be a “decent person” and a fit parent. The Utah Supreme Court has now approved the adoption of John Wyatt”s daughter.
Throughout the mother’s pregnancy, her partner John Wyatt repeatedly told her he wanted them to marry and raise their child together. She agreed, but as her due date approached, she cut off communications with him.
Two days after giving birth and unknown to Wyatt, she was in a Virginia hotel room signing away her parental rights to a Utah couple. Wyatt had gone to the hospital to see his baby, but was told that Emily Fahland had never been a patient there and no baby had been born. Eight days later, Wyatt filed suit to assert his parental rights and a Virginia judge granted his request. But by then the little girl and her adoptive parents were already in Utah. That was two years ago. Now there is little chance John Wyatt will ever see his daughter.
This case highlights many of the ways current adoption laws harm fathers and the children they love. Mothers who want to give their children up for adoption are often able to bypass fit, loving fathers who simply want to raise their own