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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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