Which man in a woman's life has the right to agree to an adoption plan?
I was just reading an update to a contested adoption case, and found the opening sentences quite shocking.
Little Grayson Vaughn's biological mother and her ex-husband, who isn't Grayson's father, gave the baby up for adoption. [From: Heartbreak in Indiana custody case, October 30, 2010, ABC news]
Adoption laws really confuse me, so I need to ask.... does an ex-husband, who is not a child's bio father, have the right to agree to an adoption plan? [I can't imagine this being acceptable.]
This leads to my next question...
If a first-father's rights have been ignored and violated, and the first-father wants custody, (and said so to the mother before the child was born and an adoption was completed), shouldn't the adoption plan executed by the birth-mother be considered null and void because both parents did not agree to relinquish parental rights to that child? [To give better perspective, review any and all of these adoption cases, because they all read pretty much the same to me...]