Many people are asking on the adoption.com forums if they can simply amend a birth certificate with no name listed for the father, without having to go through the process of a stepparent adoption. While it may seem like a quick and easy fix when it comes to naming a legal parent for your child, this is not the way to go.

A big draw for those looking to do this is that they do not need to notify the biological father of their actions. In a stepparent adoption the biological father must either sign over his parental rights, or have them involuntarily taken away by the courts if he has been deemed unfit as a parent to the child in question. Many custodial parents fear that if they were to contact the biological parent and ask for them to terminate their rights, that the parent will refuse to consent to the adoption out of spite, and perhaps try to become involved in their child’s life. Once the custodial parent has moved on from the relationship, and has had time with their child without the other parent involved, many are reluctant, if not against, the idea of having the non-custodial parent involved in the child’s life.

Simply adding a stepparent’s name to the birth certificate without going through the process of a stepparent adoption is not only illegal, it is immoral. If a stepparent adoption is to take place, it needs to be done legally, and honestly. Adding any name to the birth certificate without going through the process of adoption is fraudulent, and not only is it fraud, it is fraud of a legal document, an even larger no-no. What’s more is that it is unfair to the child, let alone the birth parent. For some unwilling parents it is the threat of losing their child forever, which kicks them into high gear and opens their eyes to how important their child is to them. In any case, jump starting a relationship or not, it is that parent’s legal right to know if their child is going to be adopted or not, it does not matter if the custodial parent likes the idea or doesn’t like the idea. It doesn’t matter if the non-custodial parent has been involved at all or not; they still have that legal right.

The child in question also has a right to know who his or her birth parents are. And while many claim that they would tell the child later on in life of the amendment to their birth certificate, chances are since it was an illegal act, that it is something that would be swept under the rug, rather than shared with the child at any age.

The bottom line would be that simply trying to add the name of a non-biological parent to the child’s birth certificate is wrong. And some states will require the man being added to the certificate to submit to a DNA test, which would cost the family a lot of money, without getting anything accomplished, except proving that the man who was to be added to the birth certificate is indeed not the biological father of the child. Seems like a lot of headache for a fact that is known going into the entire ordeal.

If a stepparent adoption is to be done, then it needs to be done legally. Those who wish to get around the legalities of a stepparent adoption may want to take some time to look over their own motives for wanting the stepparent adoption to occur. Performing a stepparent adoption merely to remove the biological parent from the child’s life completely is not a good motivation for having one done. It is an act that should be done with the child’s best interests at heart, not one to be done to rid the custodial parent of dealing with a person whom he or she dislikes. If the non-custodial parent is a threat to the child in anyway, then the custodial parent should have no problems in court terminating the parental rights of the non-custodial parent.


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