Consent to Adopt Law and Legal Definition
Consent to Adopt refers to the birth parent or agency that is acting in place of a birth parent, to release or relinquish a child for adoption. Consent is formally executed by voluntarily signing concerned document by the birthparents or agency in an adoption that allows the adoptive parents to adopt their child.
Generally, a Consent to Adoption differs from a Relinquishment that is most often used in an agency adoption, since a Consent to Adoption passes the parental rights of the birthparents directly to the adoptive parents that they have chosen, while the Relinquishment passes the parental rights to the agency, which in turn passes them on to adoptive parents, which may or may not have been selected by the birthparents.
The following is a state statute on Consent to Adopt:
“at the time of the execution of the consent the consenting person was fully informed of the legal effect of the consent, that the consenting person was not given or promised anything of value except those expenses allowable under KRS 199.590(6), that the consenting person was not coerced in any way to execute the consent, and that the consent was voluntarily and knowingly given. If at the time of the execution of the consent the consenting person was represented by independent legal counsel, there shall be a presumption that the consent was voluntary and informed. The consent shall be in writing, signed and sworn to by the consenting person and include the following:
(a) Date, time, and place of the execution of the consent;
(b) Name of the child, if any, to be adopted and the date and place of the child's birth;,/p.
(c) Consenting person's relationship to the child;
(d) Identity of the proposed adoptive parents or a statement that the consenting person does not desire to know the identification of the proposed adoptive parents;
(e) A statement that the consenting person understands that the consent will be final and irrevocable.”[KRS § 199.011]
