Legal Rights of Adoptive and Birth Parents This issue affects me, I am adopted. I believe that a child's parents are the people who raise and care for him. I don't believe birth parents have any rights to their children after the child is adopted and lives with the adoptive parents. The biological parents decided to give the child up for adoption, whatever the reason. Just because they feel their life is more "stable" and "together" does not give them the right to tear a child away from the only parents that child knows. In this way, biological parents destroy not only the life of the child but also the lives of the adoptive parents who worked so hard to have a child to call their own. I believe that biological parents should not have this right because it is based solely on selfish reasons and destroys all lives involved. In the next paragraphs I intend to discuss some famous rulings in recent adoption cases and the horrific outcomes that followed. These days, adoption has become extremely difficult for couples who wish to adopt children for fear that the adoptions may be canceled. Two of the most recent, highly publicized and heartbreaking cases in this country that have stimulated this fear in prospective adoptive parents are the cases of "Baby Jessica" of Michigan and "Baby Richard" of Illinois. In both of these cases, a child was adopted and then ordered returned to the biological parents by the courts. The widely publicized "Baby Jessica" case captured the emotions of the nation as birth parents (Dan and Cara Schmidt) of Iowa sought to regain custody of their daughter from adoptive parents (Jan and Robert DeBoer) of Mic.... .. at the center of the document...... Cited1) Barone, Roger M. "Child Custody Suits: Litigating Heartbreak." USAToday MagazineJan. 95: p72.2) Blum, Andrew. "Adoptive Families, Nov/Dec 96: p21.3) Gray, Alec. "Natural Fathers and Legal Risks.": p18.4) Grogan, David and Fannie Weinstein. "Life After Jessica." People 5 Sep 94: p46 .5) Ingrassia, Michele and John McCormick "Ordered to surrender". Newsweek 6 February 95: p44 .6) "Legislative update". Adoptive Families March/April 96: p7.7) Miller-Havens, Susan “Nature Over Nurture & I December 93: p102.8) Shapiro, Joseph P. “Bonds That Blood and Birth Cannot Guarantee.” USNews & World Report 9 Aug 93:p12.9) Wilson, Pat A. "Sunflower Birth Moms Seek to Change Adoption Laws." The News-Journal 25 Mar 98 www.aol.com 11 Nov 99http://members.aol.com/idodc/newspaper.html.