Baby Jessica Case: 1993

Almost immediately Cara began to have second thoughts. When her old boyfriend Dan showed up, she told him the baby she had just given up for adoption was his, not Scott's. Cara also attended a support-group meeting of the Concerned United Birth parents. There she listened to the sad tales of mothers who regretted giving up their babies for adoption. Before Jessica was more than a month old, Cara and Dan, who were now living together, filed motions to get her back.

It took six months to process genetic tests to prove that Dan indeed was the father. By the end of 1991, an Iowa court, accepting the proof of Dan Schmidt's parenthood and recognizing that he had never signed away his rights, nullified the adoption before it became final. The court ordered the DeBoers to return Jessica to her biological parents, Clara Clausen and Dan Schmidt.

Baby Jessica cries as she is being taken away from her adoptive parents, Jan and Roberta DeBoer. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Devastated, the DeBoers decided to fight to keep Jessica. They wrote countless letters to children's rights groups around the country. They contacted reporters. They uncovered the fact that Dan Schmidt had fathered two other children, neither of which he supported, by two other women, neither of whom he had married.

In January 1992, the Iowa Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, which dragged on throughout the year. Meanwhile, Cara and Dan were married in April 1992. Finally, in December, in an 8-to-1 decision, the higher court upheld the lower court's ruling. Although Dan's fitness as a parent was questionable, it said, his rights held priority over Jessica's. The child was ordered transferred to Iowa immediately.

The DeBoers stood their ground. Despite the Iowa court's finding them in contempt for defying its ruling, they appeared before Judge William Ager, Jr., of Washtenaw County Circuit Court in Michigan. Their lawyer, Suellyn Scarnecchia, argued that Michigan had jurisdiction in the case because Jessica had resided there for at least six months and because the majority of her records and personal relationships were in that state. The judge agreed to assume jurisdiction on behalf of the state of Michigan in order to determine what would be in Jessica's best interest.

On February 12, 1993, citing the testimony of child psychologists that Jessica would bear permanent emotional damage if she were removed from the only parents she had ever known, Judge Ager awarded custody of the child to the DeBoers. Agreeing with their lawyers that there was "much to lose and little to gain" in moving the two-year-old, and turning to the Schmidts, he said, "Think possibly of saying, 'Enough.'" He urged the two couples to keep in touch, but cautioned them not to lead Jessica to believe she had four parents.