Pact, An Adoption Alliance - Independent Adoption: Legal Guidelines

Independent Adoption: Legal Guidelines

Buying, selling, or attempting to buy or sell any person to another, or paying or receiving anything of value for having a person placed in the custody of another, is a crime. Penal Code Section 181.

Paying a parent anything of value for placement for adoption, for consenting to adoption, or for cooperation in the completion of an adoption of his or her child, is a crime. Penal Code Section 273a.

Obtaining benefits from prospective adoptive parents for payment of hospital or medical expense or financial benefits such as necessary living expenses related to the pregnancy of the birth mother or the birth of a prospective adopted child, with the intent to receive the benefits but not complete this adoption or consent to the adoption, is a crime. Penal Code Section 273b. (* Penal Code Section 273 permits the payment of maternity-related medical or hospital and necessary living expenses as an act of charity.)

Advertising placement of children for adoption or publishing a solicitation of a child for adoption without holding a license or permit to place children for adoption is a crime. Civil Code section 224p.

Placing a child for adoption without holding a license or permit to do so is a crime. This statute does not apply to the birth parent of a child placed for adoption. Civil Code section 224g.

Intentional falsification of the accounting report made under penalty of perjury is a crime. A full accounting will be required of all disbursements of anything of value made by the adoptive petitioners in connection with the birth of the child, the placement of the child with the petitioners, any medical or hospital care received by the birth mother or by the child in connection with birth, or any other expenses of the birth parents or the adoption. Civil Code section 224r.

Wrongfully concealing or removing the prospective adopted child from the country in which the adoption is pending is a crime. Civil Code section 226.10. See also Penal Code Section 280.