Baby Jessica case

The "Baby Jessica" case was a highly publicized custody battle in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 1990s between Jan and Roberta DeBoer, the couple who attempted to adopt the child, and her biological parents, Dan Schmidt and Cara Clausen. In August 1993, the supreme courts of Iowa and Michigan ordered her returned to Schmidt, who named her Anna Jacqueline Schmidt. The case was widely publicized as the "Baby Jessica" case after the name given her by the DeBoers.^[1] The case name is In re Clausen 442 Mich. 648 (1993).

Overview[]

Anna was born in 1991 to Cara Clausen, who placed her for adoption with Jan and Roberta DeBoer without telling Schmidt that he was the father. She also put a different man's name on the birth certificate, further obscuring paternity. The adoption process was handled by the DeBoers' attorney, whom Clausen erroneously thought was also her attorney. Five days after the birth, Clausen changed her mind, informed Schmidt of his paternity, and told the DeBoers that she wanted to cancel the adoption.

Clausen had already relinquished her parental rights so there was nothing that she could do. But Schmidt had not relinquished his parental rights so he could and did stop the adoption proceedings. The DeBoers, however, believing that the most important issue was the best interest of the child, rather than parental rights, attempted to complete the adoption.

Clausen and Schmidt later married, and Schmidt went to court to get the child returned to them. The DeBoers, who had named the baby "Jessica," battled to keep the child for two and a half years, but ultimately lost. Because the adoption process had never been completed, the Michigan court decided to give full faith and credit to the sister state judgment from Iowa and order child to be returned to her biological parents. Newspapers showed photographs of a screaming toddler being taken by a father she had never met and a mother she hadn’t seen since birth.^[2]

At the time, courts tended to side with birth parents rather than adoptive parents, and not take into consideration the interests of the child in question.^{[citation needed]} Since the "Baby Jessica" case, however, a further case, Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, decided on the grounds of the putative adoptive child's best interest has provided a possible precedent that in disputed cases of adoption, the rights of three parties will be considered: those of the adoptive parent(s), the biological parent(s), and also the child.

Roberta "Robby" DeBoer later wrote a book called Losing Jessica about the case,^[2] and the DeBoers established a child group called Hear My Voice that advocates for children involved in difficult custody cases, with a pro-adoptive parent angle. A TV movie dramatizing the events, Whose Child Is This? The War for Baby Jessica was produced, but was criticized by some for being biased in favor of the DeBoers.^{[citation needed]} In the film, the DeBoers, who were better educated than the Schmidts and had a better financial position, were portrayed as an affluent, ideal family for the child, while the Schmidts were portrayed as unsuitable parents.

Anna said in 2003 that she has no memory of the DeBoers and was doing well with her biological family.^[1]

See also[]

• Baby Richard case
• Adoption in the United States
• Adoption fraud

References[]

Further reading[]

• Martin Guggenheim (2005). "Getting and Losing Parental Rights: The "Baby Jessica" case". What's Wrong With Children's Rights?. Harvard University Press. pp. 50–96. ISBN 0-674-01721-8.

External links[]

• "The Ties That Traumatize", April 12, 1993 Time magazine article about the Baby Jessica case.
• "The War for Baby Clausen", March 22, 1993 The New Yorker magazine article about the Baby Jessica case.