Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts

Re: Question regarding Consent of Bio Mother

This is a unique adoption case.

I disagree with the previous attorneys in that I do not think adoption would be impossible. You are essentially proposing a co-parent adoption. You would need more than the consent of their father in order to complete a co-parent adoption.

You would need to do one of the following with respect to the mother:

1. obtain her consent to the adoption;

2. convince the court to dispense with her parental rights on grounds that she is an unfit parent; or

3. provide her with adequate and proper notice of the adoption proceding and see if she fails to object to the proceding.

All of these options are made even more tricky by the fact that she is not in Massachusetts, or even in this country.

Difficult, but not impossible. Please let me know if you I can be of further assistance, and feel free to visit my website www vaughnmartel com

Re: Question regarding Consent of Bio Mother

You are asking to terminate the parental rights of a non-US citizen, in a Massachusetts court. The courts in Massachusetts do not have jurisdiction over the Mother who resides in Jamaica (a foreign country). The children can apply for citizenship when they reach age 18, if they choose to become citizens.

Re: Question regarding Consent of Bio Mother

In addition to the information supplied by Attorney Weicker, you should note that termination of parental rights is a remedy available to the government. I will not say that a private citizen -can't- seek it, because I have never researched it. However, I have never heard of a termination that flowed from such a process. Those involuntary adoptions occur when BOTH natural parents are exceedingly and permanently unfit (or one is dead and the other unfit), and when DSS has been involved in the case for a long time. As the right to raise one's child is "of Constitutional dimension," the cases are not lightly filed nor won without solid evidence.