Utah Senate advances adoption bill tightening fathers’ responsibilities in unmarried cases

The Utah Senate advanced first substitute Senate Bill 101 on Feb. 14 after a prolonged debate over how the state balances the rights of biological parents, adoptive parents and the best interests of an adopted child.

Sponsor Senator Stewart, speaking in favor of the measure, said the bill ‘‘tightens up the father's responsibility so that we put the responsibility on the biological father’’ and argued the statute would protect adopted children by clarifying when a father's inchoate parental interest must ripen into parental responsibilities. Stewart told colleagues the bill would ‘‘affirm that in this state, we decide on the side of the child.’’

Supporters said the measure addresses cases in which an unmarried father's rights never matured because he did not assume…