The opinion
Mr. Justice Crampton, dissenting:
I am compelled to dissent. This is an adoption proceeding, not a custody determination. The majority opinion fails to mention the very important fact, admitted by both sides on oral argument, that the mother of the boy is now married to Vaughn. For the first time, this distraught woman is in a position, we can assume, to make a home for her boy and give him the care and nurture he deserves. If her rehabilitation is not effected or complete, that question may be adjudicated in a different type of proceeding. On the other hand, to forever deprive this mother of her son, is, it seems to me, a grave injustice. To take away from a natural mother all of her rights to an illegitimate child simply because her morals, subsequent to the birth of the child and while living separate and apart from the child, are called into question, is an act without authority or sanction in law. And if there were any such authority, to do so will keep the courts very busy, indeed.
The only pertinent question in this case is whether or not the defendant abandoned her son under facts and circumstances which will support the decree of the lower court. Certainly, her ability to pay for his keep during her checkered and varied career is not alone sufficient to constitute an abandonment,, especially where payments are waived or none are requested. The Appellate Court, after a careful examination of all of the evidence in this record, decided there was no abandonment or desertion. This is the same conclusion the trial court originally reached and entered a decree denying adoption but later vacated this decree and allowed the adoption on the ground the respondent was a depraved person and that she was guilty of open and notorious fornication. We may inquire, until the final order, what has been, since her marriage, the extent of her restoration. Are we to say this woman shall be denied the only highway of return to wholesomeness and send her, with all convenient speed, on down the road to perdition? And about the best interests of the child! Is he better off to be taken to his natural mother’s breast at this still tender age and readily make his adjustment or wait until he later learns the inevitable truth untempered by any association with his mother. It might be said many children would perhaps be better off in adopted homes but this is not a ground for adoption.
The Appellate Court in an able and careful opinion decided the issues in this case. (See Stalder v. Stone, 344 Ill. App. 266 .) The. Appellate Court was correct and its judgment should have been affirmed.