SALT LAKE CITY
By: Lori Prichard
— The president of the Utah Adoption Council resigned Tuesday amid controversy over claims the council is working to undermine the rights of birth fathers.
Wes Hutchins was to serve another month as president of the Ut ah Adoption Council (UAC) — a group consisting of adoption agencies, adoption attorneys, families, and birth mothers and fathers. Instead, he's founded a new nonprofit organization he says will work in the best interests of all parties in adoptions.
There was certainly friction in Tuesday's council meeting, as some representing adoption agencies accused Hutchins of having his own agenda. In turn, he pointed fingers at them for not acting ethically in administering adoptions.
"I'm a big proponent of adoptions, but I firmly believe they need to be done legally, constitutionally and ethically."
–Wes Hutchins, former UAC president
"I'm an adoption attorney. I've done over 1,080 adoptions, (and) finalized six adoptions on Friday of last week alone," Hutchins said, following the meeting. "I'm a big proponent of adoptions, but I firmly believe they need to be done legally, constitutionally and ethically."
Hutchins pointed to what he calls "egregious cases of fraud," namely: the case of Christopher Carlton, who was told by the birth mother that his child had died, and the case of Robert Manzanares, who was told by the birth mother she was traveling from Colorado to Utah to visit relatives when she was actually giving up their child.
These cases, and many like them, provide evidence, Hutchins said, that birth mothers should be held accountable.
"That's one of the changes that we need to make: that fraud is no longer accepted as a method of taking a child from one home, destroying a family, and placing (the child) in another home to create another family," he said.
That opinion conflicts with others who sit on the UAC.
"Wes has had a different vision of what's best for children in the state of Utah," said attorney David Hardy, also a former president of the UAC.
Hardy, whose clients include adoption agencies and adoptive parents, said Hutchins isn't as focused on what's best for the child.
"Wes has taken more of the approach of some of the rights of fathers. He's taken some real strong positions on fathers that are, in many ways, inconsistent with Utah code."
–David Hardy, former UAC president
"Wes has taken more of the approach of some of the rights of fathers," Hardy said. "He's taken some real strong positions on fathers that are, in many ways, inconsistent with Utah code."
"There's been a very choreographed effort to sweep birth fathers and others under the rug," Hutchins said.
And some of those birth fathers were present and vocal.
"I do have a voice, and it needs to be heard," said Jake Strickland, a father currently fighting for custody of his child.
"There's two sides to every story," added Bobby Nevares, a man in the same situation as Strickland, "but they didn't want to hear the father's side."
Hutchins said the council didn't really want to hear his side either and accused him of having an agenda.
"If you want to call that ‘an agenda,' then absolutely, call it an agenda. And that agenda is to see that we have a balanced approach in Utah to how we're doing adoptions," Hutchins said.
It's clear this father's right is a hot-button issue among the council. Today's meeting was certainly tense as each side traded accusations.
Showing posts with label UAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UAC. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Rift in Utah Adoption Council leads president to resign
Adoption • Other members found fault with president’s tactics.
The president of the Utah Adoption
Council resigned his post Tuesday — and launched his own competing
organization — amid claims the group ignores unethical practices of some
adoption agencies and has failed to treat birth fathers fairly.
Salt Lake attorney Wes Hutchins, whose
one-year term was set to end in July, said he could no longer support
what he described as a “systematically dysfunctional organization.”
“Too many members, but admittedly not all, do
not wish to truly comply with UAC’s professed mission [of promoting] ‘a
positive adoption experience for all involved, through education related
to quality adoption,’ ” Hutchins said in his resignation letter.
“Whether you like it or not, birth fathers are
part of that equation,” he said in his letter. “Whether you admit it or
not, many agencies continue to engage in unethical and unlawful
practices including post-placement cash bonuses paid directly to birth
moms, and coaching birth moms to lie and even defraud birth fathers
regarding the birth mother’s true intentions.”
Kevin Broderick, president-elect, will step in
early to replace Hutchins, said attorney David Hardy, past president of
the organization. The council was founded in 1981 and its 50 or so
members include adoption agency representatives, attorneys, state
officials, birth and adoptive parents, and adoptees.
“Wes has pushed for some things that he hasn’t been able to persuade others to go along with and gotten frustrated,” Hardy said.
Hardy said some members were upset about
surreptitious recordings Hutchins made of adoption agency workers, as
well as the public stance he took during the last legislative session on
a bill — opposed by the council — that would have required that birth
fathers receive notice of pending adoptions.
“Wes was out on an island on that one,” Hardy said.
While the council is concerned about any
allegations of baby selling, “his methods got in the way of the message
he would like to share,” Hardy said.
Hardy acknowledged one UAC member has proposed
an amendment to the group’s bylaws, that was in “some ways” directed at
Hutchins, that would allow it to terminate a member for “failure to act
in a civil fashion” at its meetings and public criticism of UAC, among
other things.
“UAC is designed to be an adoption education
and advocacy group and there was some feeling we could not function if
we had to spend all our time dealing with infighting,” Hardy said.
Hutchins said what the group failed to do, however, was apply best practices and ethical standards to its members.
“Agencies should be 100 percent truthful and
ethical all the time, and it should not matter if it is a ‘secret
shopper’ calling or a birth mother,” he said. “The secret shopper is a
well-known standard among business industries to check on customer
service practices and whether employees are following procedures.”
Last summer, Hutchins had his wife pose as the
sister of an expectant woman who was considering placing her baby for
adoption. She taped interviews with several Utah adoption agencies that
revealed some workers were coaching birth moms on how to keep birth
fathers out of the process, discussing post-placement cash payment, and
how laws favored them in Utah.
Hutchins repeated the exercise this spring, in
some cases using actual expectant mothers, and said he found little had
changed, with workers at some agencies promising cash and urging birth
mothers to “tell the birth father anything after you give birth ... it
might be easier to tell birth father that you were in an accident, and
the baby died.”
Hardy said UAC has had some discussion on the
allegations brought forth by Hutchins, but said “most of what he came
forward with initially” involved entry-level personnel and their
responses to hypothetical situations versus “anything actually going
on.”
But in at least one case, a birth father received some types of misinformation Hutchins claims to have recorded recently.
Christopher Carlton’s girlfriend was expecting
their child when the couple broke up at the end of 2009. According to
court documents and interviews, he continued to support her and her two
children despite the collapse of their relationship, expecting to be
involved with the baby due in June 2010. But the woman disappeared when
she was seven months pregnant, and despite his best efforts, Carlton, a
Pennsylvania resident, was unable to locate her.
In late June 2010, Carlton, an Iraq war
veteran, learned from a mutual friend that his girlfriend had given
birth. He was told the baby was a boy. Carlton frantically tried to
reach the mother on her cell phone and finally heard from her a day
later. She said the baby had respiratory problems. When he asked where
she was, the woman said she was “too far away” and hung up. He then
received three photos of the baby in text messages sent to his
telephone.
Three days later, the woman showed up at
Carlton’s door, raging that he’d killed her baby. According to court
documents, when he asked where the baby was, the woman said the infant
had died — though it is unknown whether she was coached to do so.
Carlton, who was devastated by the news, continued to press for
information about the baby and where it had been buried, which led his
former girlfriend to file a protective order against him.
But in court, a judge sided with Carlton and
told the woman he had a right to know what had happened to his child and
where it was buried. To avoid being questioned about the infant, the
woman dropped her allegations against Carlton. And four months later,
she asked him to meet her at a grief counselor’s office.
There, she dropped an even bigger bombshell.
The baby wasn’t dead. The woman had placed the infant, still identified
as a boy, for adoption. It took another court hearing and a judge’s
directive before the woman let Carlton know the baby had been placed
through the Adoption Center of Utah. At that point, just before being
deployed to Iraq, Carlton hired Hutchins. And there was another
revelation months later: the baby wasn’t a boy, it was girl.
Carlton has waged a so-far unsuccessful fight in Utah to get his child back.
“I want my child more than anything,” he said.
“I’ve walked places in this world where angels fear to tread, seen
things no human should have to see. Who are they to take my freedoms
away?”
brooke@sltrib.com
—
New advocacy group forms
Salt Lake attorney Wes Hutchins, himself
an adoptive father, argues the Utah Adoption Council has tilted too far
against birth fathers and their rights and has allowed unethical
practices to go unchecked.
With that in mind, he has launched a
new organization — the Utah Council for Ethical Adoption Practices — to
promote higher standards and better practices in Utah’s adoption
industry. The group now has its own Facebook page and is working on a
website.
© 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune
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