Full accounting of adoptions in Oklahoma sought

Rep. Jason Nelson, co-chairman of the legislative Adoption Review Task Force, said only the number of adoptions through the Department of Human Services is made public.

The agency finalized 1,698 adoptions during the 2010 fiscal year, an agency spokeswoman said Friday.

Adoptions handled by private agencies and by attorneys, who negotiate directly between mothers and the adoptive families, are not made public, said Nelson, R-Oklahoma City.

“We have no idea how many adoptions take place nor do we catalog the types of adoptions,” Nelson said. “Right now we're just flying blank; we have no idea how many of them take place, what the average cost is. We have no clue. We can't even ballpark it.”

A suggestion by a task force member is to require all adoptions be filed with the court clerk's office in the county where they are finalized.

Oklahoma County District Judge Patricia Parrish, a task force member, said during Friday's meeting that she has been told some Oklahoma County attorneys are going to Canadian County to file court papers to terminate birth mothers' parental rights.

“That makes me wonder if they're doing the same thing with these contracts,” Nelson said, referring to contracts attorneys had birth mothers sign stating they would give up their parental rights before the baby is born. “You can't terminate parental rights until the child is born; it's an illegal contract.”