I have been asked to speak about this three times and I have said yes twice, and the audiences were not the ones you would expect — a bar association continuing education session, and a conference of hotel general managers, which is the one where I do the most good, for reasons that will be obvious.

I say four things.

One. Nobody can sign away a child on a piece of paper, and it costs nothing to find that out.

Parental rights are ended by a court, after a proceeding, and by nothing else.

There is no private agreement that does it, in any state, however it is worded, whoever signed it, however much money changed hands, however engraved the letterhead is.

If somebody puts a document like that in front of you, you are holding a piece of paper with words on it.