Law Commons^™

The Pro Bono Collaborative Project Spotlight 05-23-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Pro Bono Collaborative Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Grasping Fatherhood In Abortion And Adoption, Malinda L. Seymore

Faculty Scholarship

Biology makes a mother, but it does not make a father. While a mother is a legal parent by reason of her biological relationship with her child, a father is not a legal parent unless he takes affirmative steps to grasp fatherhood. Being married to the mother at the time of conception or at the time of birth is one of those affirmative steps. But if he is not married to the mother, he must do far more before he will be legally recognized as a father. Biology is often presented as a sufficient reason for this dichotomy--it is easy …

Family Law Legislative Update, Jason Zarin

Law Faculty Publications

The Virginia General Assembly adjourned sine die on April 5, 2017. One bill affecting adoption was successfully vetoed, and several bills affecting adoption were enacted. Following is a preview of some possible legislation that may be introduced for the 2018 session.

Prenatal Abandonment: 'Horton Hatches The Egg' In The Supreme Court And Thirty-Four States, Mary M. Beck

Faculty Publications

Under prenatal abandonment theory, fathers can lose their parental rights to nonmarital children if they do not provide prenatal support to the mothers of their children. This is true even if the mothers have not notified the fathers of the pregnancy and if the mothers or fathers are unsure of the fathers' paternity. While this result may seem counterintuitive, it is necessitated by demographic trends. Prenatal abandonment theory has been structured to protect mothers, fathers, and fetuses in response to a number of social factors: the link between pregnancy and increased rates of sexual assault, domestic violence, and domestic homicide; …

Constitutional Parentage, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Fathers And Feminism: The Case Against Genetic Entitlement, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

This Article makes the case against a nascent consensus among feminist and other progressive scholars about men's parental rights. Most progressive proposals to reform parentage law focus on making it easier for men to assert parental rights, especially when they are not married to the mother of the child. These proposals may seek, for example, to require the state to make more extensive efforts to locate biological fathers, to require pregnant women to notify men of their impending paternity, or to require new mothers to give biological fathers access to infants.

These proposals disregard the mother's existing parental rights and …

Racial Anxieties In Adoption: Reflections On Adoptive Couple, White Parenthood, And Constitutional Challenges To The Icwa, Addie C. Rolnick

Scholarly Works

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is under fire from people who argue that it interferes with adoptions and violates the constitution by doing so. The current crop of lawsuits is an outgrowth of a 2012 case in which the Supreme Court heard its second-ever challenge to the law. While the Court sidestepped the most far-reaching anti-ICWA arguments, the majority opinion evidenced a deep skepticism about the law. This skepticism led the Court to narrow the law’s application so that it didn’t apply to the family involved, and it seemed to invite further challenges to the law.

Why Baby Markets Aren’T Free, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

Creating families in the twenty-first century increasingly happens in markets where the buying and selling of reproductive goods and services are facilitated by advanced technologies, the internet, contracts, and state laws and policies. Thus, the title of this international congress—“Baby Markets”—aptly captures a key aspect of modern reproduction. The ability of potential parents to engage in market transactions involving children enhances parents’ autonomy over their family lives. The free market seems to liberate us from the constraints of biology and state control.

This Essay argues, however, that baby markets aren’t free. Three aspects of the way reproductive goods and services …

Slides: Water Governance Innovation And Transnational Networks, Michele-Lee Moore

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Presenter: Michele-Lee Moore, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of Victoria; Water, Innovation, and Global Governance Lab

10 slides

Understanding Your Domestic Relations Rights In Virginia, 2016-2017, Julie Ellen Mcconnell

Law Faculty Publications

The Metropolitan Richmond Women’s Bar Association has published this booklet to help you understand the general legal circumstances that you may face in resolving domestic relations problems under Virginia law. Each person faces unique circumstances that may not be specifically addressed in a broad overview. This booklet is not intended to provide specific advice to you or to address your specific situation. You should use this document only as an introduction to understanding your legal rights.

This booklet is based on laws in effect in Virginia on July 1, 2016. Because laws are always subject to change, you should consult …

Law And Lgbq-Parent Families, Emily Kazyak, Brandi Woodell

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper addresses how the law affects LGBQ-parent families. We first outline the legal landscape that LGBQ parents face in the US, underscoring that it varies drastically by state and creates inequity for families. Reviewing existing social science research, we then address how the law affects three processes for LGBQ people: desiring parenthood, becoming a parent, and experiencing parent- hood. Our review indicates that the law affects if and how LGBQ people become parents. LGBQ people consider the law as they make decisions about whether to pursue adoption, donor insemination, or surrogacy and often view the latter two pathways as …

Reflections On Obergefell And The Family-Recognition Framework's Continuing Value, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Unlike a typical law review essay, I offer reflections here based largely on my own past work in LGBT rights advocacy. Together with related scholarship, I rely on these experiences to argue that the 'family recognition" framework underlying earlier advocacy has value going forward, even after the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of nationwide marriage equality.

Planned Parenthood: Adult Adoption And The Right Of Adoptees To Inherit, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article is concerned with the effect of adult adoptions on the inheritance rights (in the broad sense of that term) of adult adoptees. The Article contends many adult adoption statutes assume the existence of a parent-child relationship in which the adopter is the “parent” and the adoptee is a “child” even though this is not true of all adult adoption cases. In addition, legislatures and courts frequently fail to differentiate between “quasi-familial” adoptions and “strategic” adoptions, particularly where inheritance rights are concerned.

Inheritance Equity: Reforming The Inheritance Penalties Facing Children In Non-Traditional Families, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines how more than 50% of children living today may be disadvantaged by 1950s era inheritance laws that privilege and protect only those children living in nuclear families with their biological parents. Because so many children today are living in blended families — single-parent families, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning (LGBTQ) families, or are living with relatives — their right to inherit from the persons who function as their parents are severely limited by most state probate codes, even though they would likely be entitled to child support under the parent-child definitions of most of those states' …

Openness In International Adoption, Malinda L. Seymore

Faculty Scholarship

After a long history of secrecy in domestic adoption in the United States, there is a robust trend toward openness. That is, however, not the case with international adoption. The recent growth in international adoption has been spurred, at least in part, by the desire of adoptive parents to return to closed, confidential adoptions where the identity of the birth mother is secret and there is no ongoing contact with her. There is, however, an emergent interest in increased openness in international adoption, spurred by the success of domestic open adoptions, health concerns when an adoptee's genetic history is important, …

Separated At Adoption: Addressing The Challenges Of Maintaining Sibling-Of-Origin Bonds In Post-Adoption Families, Rebecca L. Scharf

Scholarly Works

This Article explores the ways children, many of whom are in foster care, are psychologically harmed by the law’s failure to ensure that the bonds they have with their siblings-of-origin are not permanently broken when one of the siblings is adopted; it therefore proposes ways that courts can better protect children from the psychological harm of having a biological sibling permanently removed from their life. It suggests that what is needed is a framework that allows visitation by biological siblings with whom children have formed attachments without unnecessarily intruding on the fundamental liberty interest of the adoptive parents at issue …

Adopting An International Convention On Surrogacy—A Lesson From Intercountry Adoption, Seema Mohapatra

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Adopting An International Convention On Surrogacy—A Lesson From Intercountry Adoption, Seema Mohapatra

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Starting An Adoption Agency And The Major Benefits Of Adoption, Dylan D. Lingerfelt

Senior Honors Theses

Adoption impacts families’ lives. There are many benefits of adoption. Some key concepts of adoption are what the process of adoption entails and the different decisions potential adoptive parents need to make when starting the process, a philosophy and mission in terms of a business entity and their importance to an adoption firm, how to start a law firm as a business within the United States, and how to adapt that business to expand to areas like South Asia. South Asian etiquette issues need to be considered and understood from a business perspective. Another area to consider when doing international …

Remove Time Limits On Reunification; Choose Guardianship Over Adoption, Stephen Butts

GGU Law Review Blog

No abstract provided.

Two Dads Are Better Than One: The Supreme Court Of Virginia's Decision In L.F. V. Breit And Why Virginia's Assisted Conception Statute Should Allow Gay Couples To Legally Parent A Child Together, Lauren Maxey

Law Student Publications

This comment examines whether gay men can have a child through a surrogacy arrangement in Virginia and whether gay men can retain parental rights through surrogacy contracts under the Virginia Assisted Conception Act. The Virginia laws affect gay males and gay females equally, but this comment addresses the issues arising with same-sex couples in the context of gay dads. Part II provides a background of surrogacy and specifically discusses surrogacy in relation to same-sex couples. Part III provides a general background of adoption and the establishment of parentage rights. Part IV describes the Assisted Conception Act, the legislative history of …

Adoption Law In The United States: A Pathfinder, Glen-Peter Ahlers Sr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Diversity Approach To Parenthood In Family Life And Family Law, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Extraordinary changes in patterns of family life and family law have dramatically altered the boundaries of parenthood and opened up numerous questions and debates. What is parenthood and why does it matter? How should society define, regulate, and support it? Is parenthood separable from marriage or couplehood when society seeks to foster childrens well-being? What is the better model of parenthood from the perspective of child outcomes? Intense disagreements over the definition and future of marriage often rest upon conflicting convictions about parenthood. What Is Parenthood? asks bold and direct questions about parenthood in contemporary society, and it brings together …

Surrender And Subordination: Birth Mothers And Adoption Law Reform, Elizabeth Samuels

All Faculty Scholarship

For more than 30 years adoption law reform advocates have been seeking to restore for adult adoptees the right to access their original birth certificates, a right that was lost in all but two states between the late 1930s and 1990. The advocates have faced strong opposition and have succeeded only in recent years and only in eight states. Among the most vigorous advocates for access are “birth mothers” who surrendered their children during a time it was believed that adoption would relieve unmarried women of shame and restore them to a respectable life. The birth mother advocates say that …

Terminating Parental Rights Through A Backdoor In The Virginia Code, Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

This article explores deficits in the statute, in light of constitutional law, other Virginia adoption and termination of parental rights statutes, and other states' codes and jurisprudence. Part II describes the history and practice of the statute. Part III describes the flaws of the statute, including Fourteenth Amendment violations and inherent conflicts of interest. Part IV calls for the revision of section 1202(H) based on recent precedent in which the Supreme Court of Virginia recognized the sanctity of the parent-child relationship and the state's interest in preserving it.

Inside The Castle: Law And Family In 20th Century America, By Joanna L. Grossman And Lawrence M. Friedman (Book Review), Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

Inside the Castle: Law and Family in 20th Century America, by Joanna L. Grossman and Lawrence M. Friedman, is an entertaining and occasionally frustrating history. In the book’s introduction, the authors offer two big ideas. Their first idea promotes the instrumental explanation of law, and the second idea is the rise in the last part of the twentieth century of what the authors call “individualized marriage.”

Both these ideas have been long promoted by Lawrence M. Friedman, one of the nation’s foremost legal historians, and in many respects, the evidence adduced by the authors confirms both big ideas. Grossman and …

Multicultural Issues In Family Law: An Annotated Bibliography, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

This bibliography covers law review articles published, for the most part, after 2009. Articles for which the title is self-explanatory or that concern only a single case, state, or statute are cited, but not annotated.

Scalia’S Ship Of Revulsion Has Sailed: Will Lawrence Protect Adults Who Adopt Lovers To Help Ensure Their Inheritance From Incest Prosecution?, Terry L. Turnipseed

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

SCALIA’S SHIP OF REVULSION HAS SAILED: WILL LAWRENCE PROTECT ADULTS WHO ADOPT LOVERS TO HELP ENSURE THEIR INHERITANCE FROM INCEST PROSECUTION? Terry L. Turnipseed Associate Professor of Law Syracuse University College of Law in•cest (ĭn'sěst') Sexual relations between family members or close relatives, including children related by adoption. There is a growing trend in this country – startling to many – of adopting one’s adult lover or spouse for various reasons, mostly inheritance-based. Should one who adopts his or her adult lover or spouse be prosecuted for incest? Think about it: the person is having sexual relations with his or …

The Kids Aren't Alright: Every Child Should Have An Attorney In Child Welfare Proceedings In Florida, Michael J. Dale, Louis M. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

This article is a continuation of a discussion as to why, as a matter of Florida constitutional law, public policy, and professional ethics, Florida's children need independent attorneys from the inception of all dependency and termination of parental rights cases to their completion. It is based upon events which have occurred since the authors' last article on this topic in the Nova Law Review, including the Barahona case, the resolution by the American Bar Association (ABA) in August 2011 at its Annual Convention in Toronto adopting the ABA Model Act Governing the Representation of Children in Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency …

Every Adolescent Deserves A Parent, Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

This article argues that all adolescents, indeed all human beings, deserve at least one parent—one person who takes the good with the bad because that person’s life is intertwined with the child’s. The child matters to the parent in a way that a friend, nephew, or foster child may not. Child welfare professionals must never lose sight of this principle when they recruit, train, and maintain parents for adolescents. The parent can be someone who is already in the young person’s life or someone who has been unable to parent in the past, but is now ready to secure that …