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§10-7501-1.2.
§10-7501-1.2.
A. The Legislature of this state believes that every child should be
raised in a secure, loving home and finds that adoption is the best
way to provide a permanent family for a child whose biological parents
are not able or willing to provide for the child's care or whose
parents believe the child's best interest will be best served through
adoption. The purpose of the Oklahoma Adoption Code is to:
1. Ensure and promote the best interests of the child in adoptions and
to establish an orderly and expeditious process for movement of
adoption matters through the courts;
2. Affirm that the parent-child relationship is fundamental and that
all adoption laws should be fair to the child and to each parent of
the child;
3. Affirm the duty of the biological parents to provide appropriately
for the care of the child unless custody of the child has been
transferred either voluntarily or involuntarily;
4. Affirm the duty of a noncustodial parent to:
a. provide financial support for the parent's biological child, and
otherwise exercise parental responsibilities,
b. maintain a parent-child relationship, regardless of the absence of
any court order to that effect, and
c. provide for the appropriate financial support of the mother of the
child during her term of pregnancy;
5. Affirm the duty of a male person who has sexual relations with a
female person outside of marriage to be aware that a pregnancy might
occur;
6. Affirm the duty of the biological father of a child who is to be
born or who is born outside of marriage to exercise his parental
responsibilities for the child. This includes the duty to inform
himself about the existence and needs of any such child and to
exercise parental responsibilities toward that child even before
birth;
7. Encourage prebirth planning for adoption as a means of facilitating
adoption of a child into a permanent family as soon as possible. To
that end, the Oklahoma Adoption Code provides for a prebirth notice of
a plan for adoption and for procedures by which a putative father may
give his consent or otherwise respond to the notice;
8. Ensure that children placed for adoption will be raised in stable,
permanent loving families whose qualifications for adoption have been
properly evaluated in light of the child's needs;
9. Promote and strengthen the integrity and finality of adoptions by
limiting the time and circumstances for a consent to be withdrawn or a
challenge to the adoption filed; and
10. Recognize the right of all children who have been adopted to have
access to information about their social and medical history.
B. It is the intent of the Legislature to balance the privacy rights
of all parties to an adoption while clarifying when and to whom
information may be released. The Legislature seeks to promote
voluntary reunions, provide for confidential intermediaries, and
collect and maintain social and medical information relating to the
adoption in the recognition that all children should have access to
knowledge about their heritage.
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