Sen. Karen Johnson

Paternity rights clarified to aid adoptions
What the new law does: Voids a potential father’s authority to give consent to adoption proceedings or to the termination of parental rights if he fails to file a paternity action within 30 days after being notified of potential paternity. Thereafter, such proceedings may continue without his knowledge or consent.
A new bill ensures that men who ignore notices of potential paternity will not be able to claim parental privileges later in order to influence adoptions or affect proceedings to terminate parental rights.
The bill, S1415 (Chapter 58), passed 47-9 in the House and 28-0 in the Senate before being signed into law by Governor Napolitano on April 6.
It was written to address demands from adoption attorneys that the state recognize when fathers had forfeited their parental rights, said Sen. Karen Johnson, R-18, the bill’s sponsor.
“They wanted it clarified that you do not, in fact, have to give (the fathers) another notice,” she said.
“Giving additional notices was causing a whole lot of problems with the courts. It was getting the adoptions all messed up and making people wait a long time while they tried to find the fathers again.”
Arizona statute requires mothers to file a notarized list of potential fathers with the courts when their children are placed for adoption; and the men listed are all served one notice each, in person, to inform them of their possible paternity and the planned adoption proceedings.
Potential fathers are required to claim paternity with the Department of Economic Security within 30 days if they wish to exercise their parental rights and offer or withhold adoption consent.
Ms. Johnson, chairman of Senate Family Services Committee, said men who wait to claim paternity until adoption proceedings have progressed beyond those 30 days often do so to complicate the lives of their former partners, but always do so at the expense of the children and the adoptive parents.
“If you’re in the process of adopting a child, you’re anticipating this, you’ve made plans for it, and if all of a sudden it just kind of blows up in your face — that is devastating,” she said.
Ms. Johnson said she hopes her bill makes the adoption process more accommodating for everyone involved and that it has already been warmly received by her constituents.
“I’ve had other bills that maybe impacted more people than something like this, but to the people that this bill does affect, it has a tremendous impact,” she added.