TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa father is fighting to be a parent to his 5-year-old daughter, who was taken by an adoption agency two days after she was born without his knowledge or consent.
“I think that they took a lot from me. A lot from me. I miss my baby, my daughter growing up," Ulysess Carwise said. "She’s five now. She just had a birthday.”
From the time she was born, Carwise told the Florida Department of Children and Families he wanted his daughter. But he needed to prove he was the father and establish his rights because the child's mother, who put the baby up for adoption without his consent, weren't married.
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“I went up to see the baby, the baby wasn’t there," Carwise said, going to the hospital after his daughter was born. "I said, 'You did what?'"
The case is an example of what can happen when parents aren't married in Florida and a father's rights have to be established. It shines a light on a state registry many don't even know exists, Florida's Putative Father Registry.
What is the Registry?
The state's Department of Health website states, "The purpose of the registry is to permit a man alleging to be the unmarried biological father of a child to preserve his right to notice and consent in the event of an adoption."
“If you survey, let's say, 1,000 people randomly across Florida, how many do you think would know that that birth father registry exists? And I bet it's tiny, if any," the President of the National Center on Adoption and Permanencyand an adoptive father himself told the I-Team.
That lack of knowledge is among the reasons Pertman is critical of these types of father registries.
“They're ostensibly set up to ensure father's rights, you know, if you sign up, you can access and parent your own kid. In practice, that's not typically how it goes. In practice, in Florida and elsewhere, they’re more typically used to cut fathers out," Pertman said.
Carwise completed the registry but was then questioned about the timing of when he filled it out.
According to state law, the claim of paternity with Florida's registry "may be filed at any time before the child's birth, but may not be filed after the date a petition is filed for termination of parental rights."
The putative father registry asks men to provide their contact information, a physical description of the mother, and the date, place, and location of conception. There is a required $9 filing fee.
DHS Claim of Paternity by ABC Action News
“It’s providing the state or some misguided professionals, in my view, with the ability to say, sorry pal, you’re out of the picture," Pertman said.
A judge in Orange County ultimately denied the petition to terminate Carwise's parental rights, but an attorney for the prospective adoptive parents filed a new petition in Hillsborough County. The legal fight is ongoing.
“Adoption should genuinely be about finding families for kids who need them, not finding kids for families who want them," Pertman said.
