The Strange Tale of Baby Richard : The states’ adoption laws are a frightening hodgepodge

The heart-wrenching picture of 4-year-old Baby Richard sobbing and reaching for his adoptive mother as he was carried off by his biological father says it all about a legal system preoccupied with the rights of biological parents instead of the best interests of the child. Ripped from all that he had known, Baby Richard was whisked away from suburban Chicago on Sunday by a man whom he had never met.

The case renews the national debate over the inadequacy of state adoption laws and how courts can best balance not only the rights of biological and adoptive parents but the rights of the biological father versus those of the biological mother. What’s needed is a standardization and modernization of adoption laws.

The legislatures of six states--California not among them--have introduced a proposed Uniform Adoption Act, a model law developed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Law. Its aim is to make adoptions legally permanent to avoid cases like that of Baby Richard. The act tries to balance the competing interests of children and biological or adoptive parents. It would set strict, uniform time limits in which a biological mother could change her mind about giving up her child and it would limit the time in which a father could contest an adoption once he had been informed his child had been placed. However, the controversial act needs fine-tuning; it focuses too heavily on the private adoption of infants as opposed to those handled by public agencies (which place many more children, especially harder-to-place older kids).

In Baby Richard’s case, his biological mother, Daniela Janikova, gave him up for adoption four days after his birth in March, 1991. She listed the biological father, Otakar Kirchner, as “unknown,” believing he had abandoned her. When Kirchner soon resurfaced, Janikova told him the child was dead. When he learned otherwise he immediately asserted his parental rights--two months after Richard’s birth. A trial judge dismissed his challenge to Richard’s adoption because Illinois’ 30-day deadline had passed.

Kirchner and Janikova then married and have pursued their custody fight to the Illinois Supreme Court, which vacated the adoption decree last year. The court noted that the adoptive parents “should have relinquished the baby at that time (when the biological father came forward). It was their decision to prolong this litigation.” Illinois has since enacted a law requiring a custody hearing to focus on the child’s welfare when an adoption is revoked. Nonetheless, the Illinois Supreme Court subsequently awarded custody to Kirchner. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block that ruling.

The Baby Richard case is achingly similar to the story of Baby Jessica, adopted as an infant but returned at age 2 to her biological mother.

These cases may seem to call for the wisdom of Solomon. Judges and legislators would do well to recall what he did when confronted with two women laying claim to the same baby. He proposed cutting the baby in half and giving half to each. When one woman was willing to give the baby up rather than see it die, the wise king ruled that she must be the real mother. Solomon’s wisdom (1 Kings 3) lay in putting the interests of the child first. Too often, under current American law, those interests come last.