Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring in an illegal way, with the intent of never resuming or reasserting guardianship. The phrase is typically used to describe the physical abandonment of a child. Still, it can also include severe cases of neglect and emotional abandonment, such as when parents fail to provide financial and emotional support for children over an extended period. An abandoned child is referred to as a foundling. Baby dumping refers to parents leaving a child younger than 12 months in a public or private place with the intent of terminating their care for the child. It is also known as rehoming when adoptive parents use illegal means, such as the internet, to find new homes for their children. In the case where child abandonment is anonymous within the first 12 months, it may be referred to as secret child abandonment.
Grandparent visitation is a legal right that grandparents in some jurisdictions may have to have court-ordered contact with their grandchildren. In no case is contact between grandparents and children considered an inalienable right.
Emancipation of minors is a legal mechanism by which a minor before attaining the age of majority is freed from control by their parents or guardians, and the parents or guardians are freed from responsibility for their child. Minors are normally considered legally incompetent to enter into contracts and to handle their own affairs. Emancipation overrides that presumption and allows emancipated children to legally make certain decisions on their own behalf.
The United States Children's Bureau is a federal agency founded in 1912, organized under the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. Today, the bureau's operations involve improving child abuse prevention, foster care, and adoption. Historically, its work was much broader, as shown by the 1912 act which created and funded it:
The said bureau shall investigate and report to [the Department of Commerce and Labor] upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people, and shall especially investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth-rate, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of children, employment, legislation affecting children in the several states and territories.
A baby hatch or baby box is a place where people can leave babies, usually newborn, anonymously in a safe place to be found and cared for. This was common from the Middle Ages to the 18th and 19th centuries, when the device was known as a foundling wheel. Foundling wheels were abandoned in the late 19th century, but a modern form, the baby hatch, was reintroduced from 1952 and since 2000 has been adopted in many countries, most notably in Pakistan where there are more than 300. They can also be found in Germany (100), the United States (150), Czech Republic (88) and Poland (67).
The National Parents Organization (NPO) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable and educational organization in the United States that promotes shared parenting. The organization focuses on family court reform, research, and public education with the goal to make shared parenting the general norm for separated parenting.
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is a federal statute that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. The Walsh Act organizes sex offenders into three tiers according to the crime committed, and mandates that Tier 3 offenders update their whereabouts every three months with lifetime registration requirements. Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every six months with 25 years of registration, and Tier 1 offenders must update their whereabouts every year with 15 years of registration. Failure to register and update information is a felony under the law. States are required to publicly disclose information of Tier 2 and Tier 3 offenders, at minimum. It also contains civil commitment provisions for sexually dangerous people.
Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States, citing a constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, struck down a Washington law that allowed any third party to petition state courts for child visitation rights over parental objections.
The tender years doctrine is a legal principle in family law since the late 19th century. In common law, it presumes that during a child's "tender" years, the mother should have custody of the child. The doctrine often arises in divorce proceedings.
A prison nursery is a section of a prison that houses incarcerated mothers and their very young children. Prison nurseries are not common in correctional facilities in the United States, although prior to the 1950s many states had them and they are widespread throughout the rest of the world.
The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 is a United States federal law that governs jurisdiction over the removal of American Indian children from their families in custody, foster care and adoption cases.
Anna Mae He was born on January 28, 1999, in the United States and was the subject of a custody battle between her Chinese biological parents, Jack and Casey He, and her white foster parents, Jerry and Louise Baker. The case, revolving around the Bakers' claim that the Hes had abandoned their rights to the child when they signed a temporary custody order, lasted seven years and received national media attention in the United States.
In the United States, child pornography is illegal under federal law and in all states and is punishable by up to life imprisonment and fines of up to $250,000. U.S. laws regarding child pornography are virtually always enforced and amongst the sternest in the world. The Supreme Court of the United States has found child pornography to be outside the protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Federal sentencing guidelines on child pornography differentiate between production, distribution, and purchasing/receiving, and also include variations in severity based on the age of the child involved in the materials, with significant increases in penalties when the offense involves a prepubescent child or a child under the age of 18. U.S. law distinguishes between pornographic images of an actual minor, realistic images that are not of an actual minor, and non-realistic images such as drawings. The latter two categories are legally protected unless found to be obscene, whereas the first does not require a finding of obscenity.
In the United States of America, the putative father registry is a state level legal option for unmarried men to document through a notary public any woman they engage with in intercourse, for the purpose of retaining parental rights for any child they may father.
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, 570 U.S. 637 (2013), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which held that several sections of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) do not apply to Native American biological fathers who are not custodians of a Native American child. The court held that the procedures required by the ICWA to end parental rights do not apply when the child has never lived with the father. Additionally, the requirement to make extra efforts to preserve the Native American family also does not apply, nor is the preferred placement of the child in another Native American family required when no other party has formally sought to adopt the child.
Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the fathers of children born out of wedlock had a fundamental right to their children. Until the ruling, when the mother of a child born out of wedlock was unable to care for the child, through death or other circumstances, the child was made a ward of the state and either placed in an orphanage or foster care or for adoption.
Raymond W. Godwin is an adoption attorney based in South Carolina.
An anonymous birth is a birth where the mother gives birth to a child without disclosing her identity, or where her identity remains unregistered. In many countries, anonymous births have been legalized for centuries in order to prevent formerly frequent killings of newborn children, particularly outside of marriage.
Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982), is a Supreme Court case involving the burden of proof for the revocation of parental rights. The case arose when the Ulster County, New York, Department of Social Services sought to revoke John Santosky II and Annie Santosky's parental rights to their three children. Under Section 622 of the New York State Family Court Act, the state was permitted to revoke parental rights to a natural child if, after a fair preponderance of the evidence, a court found "permanent neglect." The New York State Family Court found such neglect by using the "fair preponderance" standard. The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the burden of proof used.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes (SHBB) is a non-profit organization that provides a safe and legal alternative to abandoning newborn babies. This organization, founded by Monica Kelsey in 2015, installs specialized baby boxes at designated secure locations where parents can safely surrender their newborns, ensuring their well-being and reducing the risk of harm or abandonment.
