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 parental duties and that codifying the balance will reduce chaotic post-adoption litigation. Attorneys who helped draft the language, including Janita Hancock, explained to the Committee of the Whole that the bill's fraud and impossibility provisions are intended to distinguish fathers who had no realistic opportunity to assert parental rights from cases in which a mother affirmatively misled a putative father. Hancock said courts in other states have framed similar issues as questions of impossibility or fraud and that the bill seeks to balance due-process and equal-protection concerns.

Opponents and some members warned of constitutional risk. Senator Hillier (floor questioning) and others said the fraud/impossibility language could be challenged and might later unsettle adoptions the Legislature intends to protect. Senator Hilliard (committee comments) urged caution and said the topic is ‘‘very technical’’; he recommended care to avoid drafting that a court could strike down as unconstitutional. Several senators asked whether the changes might produce post‑enactment litigation that would reopen long-settled adoptions.

The Senate debated specific provisions that would (1) make a biological father's inchoate interest contingent on his timely, demonstrable assumption of parental responsibilities and (2) create statutory findings about how courts should balance the rights of birth parents, adoptive parents and the child's interest when fraud or impossibility are alleged. Attorneys said the bill preserves remedies for fraud but does not automatically return custody to a biological father if an adoption is set aside.

After the Committee of the Whole discussion and recorded roll call, the Senate recorded 28 ayes, no nays and 1 absent on the question to advance the first substitute for third reading and sent the bill to the bottom of the third‑reading calendar for further consideration. The committee and several senators noted they had worked extensively on compromise language but acknowledged the constitutional risk and the possibility of subsequent court review.

Next steps: the bill has been carried to the third‑reading calendar for final passage consideration. If enacted, advocates and opponents said, further litigation could determine how courts apply the statute in complex factual scenarios.