Obese Face Obstacles in Adoption Process

July 31, 2007 — -- The notoriously complex adoption process just got even harder for one man who claims his weight led a judge to deem him ineligible to adopt.

Gary Stocklaufer told KMBC-TV in Kansas City, Mo., that a family court judge ruled him an unfit adoptive parent because of his 500-pound figure. Stocklaufer wants to adopt his infant cousin because the mother is unable to care for the child.

With adoption agencies scrutinizing potential adoptive parents' every move — from criminal background checks to bank records — cases like Stocklaufer's raise questions about what personal factors should be considered during adoption proceedings.

Obesity remains just one of many factors social workers consider when determining whether an individual would make a good adoptive parent, experts told ABC News.

"[In order to become an adoptive parent] there's a lengthy home study and it's a process where a licensed social worker comes to the home and reviews everything from the family background, living conditions, health, security and views the home for safety issues," says Lee Allen, a spokesman for the National Council for Adoption. "The home study is used to determine a family's ability to provide permanency for a child."

Obesity, he says, only becomes an issue for a potential parent when it could jeopardize the stability of the child's home.

"There are criteria for adoptive parents and that does include health criteria," Allen said. "The goal for adoption, of course, is to provide permanency for a child who doesn't have that. But when someone has a health risk that could produce a risk to permanency then it has to be looked at."

While some may consider this to be unfair discrimination, some say this comprehensive review is considered by some to be one of the greatest advantages of the adoption system and an effective way to prevent children from returning to the foster care system.

"We do have the opportunity with adoption to make sure that people who might make unsafe parents don't get through the process," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and author of "Adoption Nation." "But the process should certainly not be one in which people can be parents based on income or their posture or their weight or in general any other factor that is by a common standard unreasonable."