The ties that bind us: An empirical, clinical, and constitutional argument against terminating parental rights
This Article explores the unnecessary termination of a child's relationship with their parent from an empirical, clinical, and constitutional lens.
Adoption Cannot be Reformed
Co-author Ashley Albert surrendered her parental rights to her two youngest children. She shares her story of ostensibly "voluntary" surrender, which was anything but voluntary. This Article goes on to address the practice of permanently severing the legal bonds between a parent and a child, then the State's "replacement" of those bonds with new ones via formalized adoption. It informs readers of the historical background behind modern adoption, argues that adoption must be addressed separately from the family regulation system, and describes the specific harms caused by adoption today.
Ending the Family Death Penalty and Building a World We Deserve
In this paper, authors encourage people not only to work to repeal ASFA, but to interrogate the imagination which entrenched the legitimacy of ASFA. The paper describes the world authors want to build, discusses the ideas and mythology that created ASFA, and isolates ASFA as a target for abolition and organizing. Authors engage a practical discussion about ethical ways to mobilize around ASFA.
The Cumulative Prevalence of Termination of Parental Rights for U.S. Children, 2000–2016
Recent research has used synthetic cohort life tables to show that having a Child Protective Services investigation, experiencing confirmed maltreatment, and being placed in foster care are more common for American children than would be expected based on daily or annual rates for these events. This article extends this literature by using synthetic cohort life tables and data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System to generate the first cumulative prevalence estimates of termination of parental rights.
Child Welfare’s Scarlet Letter: How a Prior Termination of Parental Rights can Permanently Brand a Parent as Unfit
In many jurisdictions, once a parent has her rights terminated to one child, the State can use that decision to justify the termination of parental rights to another child. The State can do so regardless of whether the parent is fit to parent the second child. This article explores this practice, examines its origins, and discusses its constitutional inadequacies.
The New Permanency
This Article proposes a set of reforms that would help fully implement the new permanency nationwide. These reforms would rid the law of a hierarchy among permanency options, establish a stronger and more consistent preference for kinship placements, and empower families, not the state, to select the permanency option that best fits their situation, through more rigorous procedures and better provision of quality counsel than current law provides.
The Impact of the Adoption and Safe Families Act on Children of Incarcerated Parents
This article examines how ASFA’s timelines for TPR disproportionately affect children of incarcerated parents, raising concerns about fairness and the preservation of family bonds.
Resurrecting Parents of Legal Orphans: Un-Terminating Parental Rights
This article presents an overview of state efforts to provide a mechanism by which parental rights may be reinstated and explores court responses to individual requests to recreate parent-child relationships after TPR. It outlines arguments related to res judicata and equal protection that may be used by parents when the court denies standing and proposes a method of temporarily terminating parental rights which ensures that children do not exit the foster care system without legal parents and discusses situations when the option may be most appropriate.
Is Twenty-Two Months Beyond the Best Interest of the Child? ASFA’s Guidelines for the Termination of Parental Rights
This article critically examines the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) and its mandate for initiating TPR proceedings after a child has been in foster care for 15 out of 22 months, analyzing its impact on children’s best interests.
Parental Rights Termination Jurisprudence: Questioning the Framework
This article critiques the legal framework governing TPR, questioning the assumptions underlying current jurisprudence and advocating for reforms to better protect parental rights.