Adoption Dispute In Utah

Lawyers say a 20-year-old Chicago woman changed her mind about giving up her baby for adoption in Utah, and the adoption agency she was working with threatened to leave the woman stranded.

Allegations were recently brought in a lawsuit against a Utah adoption agency that solicits African-American babies for adoption, reaching birth mothers through newspaper ads. A single birth mother, suffering from postpartum depression, who left her baby with that adoption agency last month, was responding to one of those ads.

The woman's attorneys allege, she was "coerced" and "threatened" when she tried to back out of the adoption, and that the birth mother was "mentally, emotionally and physically impaired" when she traveled to Utah and surrendered her parental rights.

The suit was filed against A Cherished Child Adoption Agency and looks to seek the immediate return of an African-American child born Sept. 10, 2004.

The lawsuit claims that the birth mother was suffering from postpartum depression when she arrived in Utah. She had a 102-degree temperature, had not been eating for several days and was crying uncontrollably. When she told the adoption agency's director, that she did not want to go through with the adoption, she was threatened, her lawyer said.

The lawsuit suggests the adoption agency sent money to McDonald to "induce trust" and to "further entice" her to come to the state of Utah where only a 24 hour layover is required. The adoption agency purchased airplane tickets and allegedly promised that the baby would be adopted by a biracial couple.

At least three other single birth mothers in the Chicago area were recently enticed by ads to place their infants up for adoption in Utah. Because of the huge legal expense to challenge these adoptions, they are rarely overturned.