By Andrea Smardon
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kuer/local-kuer-1011779.mp3
Salt Lake City, UT – Salt Lake lawyer Wes Hutchins said in his resignation letter that some Utah adoption agencies are engaged in unethical and unlawful practices including cash bonuses paid to birth mothers, and coaching of birth mothers to lie to birth fathers. He drew attention to these issues by secretly recording agency interviews with women posing as birth mothers. Faced with this evidence, Hutchins says the Council did nothing.
"It kind of boils down to one simple thing - organizational hypocrisy, and lack of desire to enforce its own standards its own standards and practices on its own member agencies," said Hutchins.
Former Council President David Hardy says the organization is not in the business of policing its members.
"It is in the business to promote adoption, to educate, regarding adoption, it's not in the business of determining whether its members are complying with standards," said Hardy.
Hutchins has started a new organization called the Utah Council for Ethical Adoption Standards, which he says will promote ethical practices and hold adoption agencies accountable.