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Full-Text Articles in Fourteenth Amendment
Which Came First The Parent Or The Child?, Mary P. Byrn, Jenni Vainik Ives
Which Came First The Parent Or The Child?, Mary P. Byrn, Jenni Vainik Ives
Faculty Scholarship
From the moment a child is born, she is a juridical person endowed with constitutional rights. A child’s parents, however, do not become legal parents until a state statute grants them the fundamental right to raise one’s child. The state, therefore, exercises considerable power and discretion when it drafts the parentage statutes that determine who becomes a legal parent. This article asserts that the state, through its parens patriae power, has a duty to act as an agent for children when it drafts its parentage statutes. In particular, the state must adopt parentage statutes that satisfy children’s fundamental right to …