Family Law Commons^™

Rescuing Children From The Marriage Movement: The Case Against Marital Restrictions On Adoption And Assisted Reproduction, Richard F. Storrow

ExpressO

Much of the current cultural debate about marriage in the United States focuses on the need for children to be raised by heterosexual married couples. In the current atmosphere, it is important to examine how marriage functions in contexts where parent-child relationships are determined by more than just genetics and marital presumptions. This Article argues that the favoritism toward marriage in adoption and assisted reproduction relates neither to the purposes of marriage nor to child welfare. Part I subjects marital restrictions on assisted reproduction to an interpretivist microscope, and Part II undertakes a comprehensive comparison of step-parent adoption and second-parent …

The Parent Trap: Uncovering The Myth Of "Coerced Parenthood" In Frozen Embryo Disputes, Ellen Waldman

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Someday All This Will Be Yours: Inheritance, Adoption, And Obligation In Capitalist America, Hendrik Hartog

Indiana Law Journal

Harris Lecture, delivered to the faculty and students of Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington on April 7, 2003.

Also see: Hartog, Hendrik. Someday All This Will be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.

Embryo Donation: Unresolved Legal Issues In The Transfer Of Surplus Cryopreserved Embryos, Charles P. Kindregan Jr., Maureen Mcbrien

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Socioeconomics In Teaching Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Applying knowledge from other social sciences makes particular sense with the law and economics of the family. Much of the behavior we see and experience within families is difficult to see or understand as economically rational, that is, narrowly self-interested. Many of the legal changes we make that appear to be rational, at least from a cost-benefit perspective, turn out to be unsatisfying or even counterproductive. Though economists tend to view motivations or "utility functions" based upon "revealed preference," extended models like that of socioeconomics go below what is revealed to measure, as best we can, people's attitudes and feelings …

Power, Possibility And Choice: The Racial Identity Of Transracially Adopted Children, Twila L. Perry

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Review of The Ethics of Transracial Adoption by Hawley Fogg-Davis

Strangers And Brothers: A Homily On Transracial Adoption, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

The common law speaks to us in parables. Ours is Drummond v. Fulton County Department of Family and Children's Services. Just before Christmas 1973, a boy named Timmy was born to a white mother and a black father. A month later, his mother was declared unfit, and the Department of Family and Children Services placed Timmy with white foster parents - Robert and Mildred Drummond. The Drummonds were "excellent" and "loving" parents, and Timmy grew into "an extremely bright, highly verbal, outgoing 15-month baby boy." Then the Drummonds asked to adopt Timmy. The Department's reviews of the Drummonds' devotion …

Placing The Adoptive Self, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

[A]doption law and practices are guided by enormous cultural changes in the composition and the meaning of family. As families become increasingly blended outside the context of adoption – with combinations of blood relatives, step-relatives, de facto relatives, and ex-relatives sitting down together for Thanksgiving dinner as a matter of course – birth families and adoptive families knowing one another may not seem so very strange or threatening at all. There will simply be an expectation across communities that ordinary families will be mixed and multiple. With that in mind, we should hesitate before establishing embeddedness as the source of …

The Sexual Regulation Dimension Of Contemporary Welfare Law: A Fifty State Overview, Anna Marie Smith

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In this article, Smith will attempt to demonstrate that welfare policy has become a prominent site of sexual regulation; that the rights of poor single mothers are at stake in this respect; and that given the precise structure of contemporary American welfare reform, we must pay especially close attention to the laws and regulations adopted at the state level. First, Smith will place contemporary sexual regulation-oriented welfare law in an historical context by considering its precedents in English and American public policy traditions (Part I). Using original qualitative analyses of the states' statutory codes and administrative regulations, Smith will then …

How Much Does Legal Status Matter? Adoptions By Kin Caregivers, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock

Journal Articles

Virtually all the legislation dealing with families that include children begins with a "best interests of the child" premise.' Most, if not all, of the litigated results at least seem to maximize the outcomes for adults. This discrepancy should not be surprising, for both substantive and procedural reasons.

The substantive reason, as even the Supreme Court has noted, is that most of the time, what is good for parents will also be good for children. Moreover, having parents who possess many "rights" allow them to better exercise their parental responsibilities. From a procedural perspective, adults are usually the named parties …

Florida's Foster Care System Fails Its Children, Timothy L. Arcaro

Faculty Scholarship

This article will attempt to draw attention to the pervasive problem of child sexual abuse in foster care by identifying circumstances that contribute to sexual victimization. Hopefully the discussion will illuminate the plight of child victims of sexual abuse and generate discourse on a new paradigm of protection initiatives for foster children. Part I of the article will explain child protection proceedings and how children enter the foster care system. Part II will describe common characteristics of state foster care systems. Part III will discuss traditional notions of child sexual abuse and their illusory application in the context of sexual …

The Idea Of Adoption: An Inquiry Into The History Of Adult Adoptee Access To Birth Records, Elizabeth Samuels

All Faculty Scholarship

There has been in recent years and there continues to be intense debate around the country about whether to open original birth records to adult adoptees. Our understanding of the legal history relevant to the debate has been incomplete and inaccurate. According to this understanding, the state laws that closed court and birth records to the parties to adoptions generally closed these records for all time to all parties; the laws had a primary purpose of insuring lifelong anonymity for birth parents; and the laws became nearly universal by about the middle of the twentieth century. In fact, the history …

The Strange History Of Adult Adoptee Access To Original Birth Records, Elizabeth Samuels

All Faculty Scholarship

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, contemporary accounts reported that most states had sealed adoption court records completely but, typically, had sealed original birth certificates from all persons except adult adoptees. Through the 1950s influential experts recommended that original birth certificates remain available to adult adoptees, while birth and court records otherwise be closed to all persons except upon court order. In 1960 the laws in some 40 percent of the states still permitted adult adoptees to inspect them, but between 1960 and 1990 all but a handful of the rest of the states closed the birth records to …

A Family Affair: Constitutional And Prudential Interests Implicated When Homosexuals Seek To Preserve Or Create Parent-Child Relationships, Kif Skidmore

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Second Chances: Insuring That Poor Families Remain Intact By Minimizing Socioeconomic Ramification Of Poverty, Cynthia R. Mabry

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conceiving Non-Marital Fathers' Rights: An Inquiry Into The Constitutionality Of West Virginia's Adoption Statute, Lisa Kelly

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Second-Parent Adoption, Patricia J. Falk

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The topic of this article is second-parent adoption. I hope to accomplish four things in my discussion. First, I will define second-parent adoption and give some reasons that it is desirable for both parents and children. Second, I will summarize the state of the law in terms of legislative enactments and case law in the United States. Third, I will discuss the role of social science in second-parent adoption cases. Finally, I will discuss some of the implications of recognizing second-parent adoptions.

Conceiving Nonmarital Fathers' Rights: An Inquiry Into The Constitutionality Of West Virginia's Adoption Statute, Lisa Kelly

Articles

When do the rights of nonmarital fathers to their children quicken? Is it only upon the father's establishment of a substantial economic and emotional relationship with his child? Do such fathers' interests gel only after the ink has dried on an order or affidavit in which paternity is established or acknowledged? Do there fundamental rights lie inchoate in the beating hearts of the newborn or gestating child? How should the law regard the role of the nonmarital father in the adoption context? Should there be one standard for all or two-one for fathers of infants and another for fathers or …

Pondering Past Purposes: A Critical History Of American Adoption Law, David Ray Papke

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

China's Newly Enacted Intercountry Adoption Law: Friend Or Foe?, Crystal J. Gates

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

The Tragic And Chaotic Aftermath Of A Baby Switch: Should Policy And Common Law, Blood Ties, Or Psychological Bonds Prevail, Cynthia R. Mabry

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

West Virginia's Adoption Statute: The History Of A Work In Progress, Lisa Kelly

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adoption In The Progressive Era: Preserving, Creating, And Re-Creating Families, Chris Guthrie, Joanna L. Grossman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The history of adoption law and practice has received scant attention from legal scholars and historians. Most of what little scholarship there is focuses on the history of adoption to the mid-nineteenth century, when the first adoption statutes emerged in the United States. Although the enactment of these statutes has been hailed as "an historic moment in the history of Anglo-American family and society" and "the most far-reaching innovation of nineteenth-century custody law," few scholars have made an effort to document the actual operation of adoption law following the enactment of these landmark statutes. This article does just that. Drawing …

Balancing Interests In Frozen Embryo Disputes: Is Adoption Really A Reasonable Alternative?, David L. Theyssen

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Adoption, Identity, And The Constitution: The Case For Opening Closed Records, Naomi R. Cahn, Jana B. Singer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

West Virginia's Adoption Statute: A History Of A Work In Progress, Lisa Kelly

Articles

More than two years have passed since the Legislature reformed West Virginia's adoption statute. The goal of this article is to provide a kind of legislative history to deepen the reader's understanding of the current statute. This history will include an explanation of the West Virginia Law Institute's Proposal, as well as the Legislature's reaction to it. In Part II, I will detail this history. In Part III, I will explain the operation of the current statute, with mention of the few recent adoption decisions that have construed various provisions. In Part IV, I will look at some of the …

Adoption In The Progressive Era: Preserving, Creating, And Re-Creating Families, Joanna L. Grossman, Chris Guthrie

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Intercountry Adoption Under The Hague Convention: Still An Attractive Option For Homosexuals Seeking To Adopt?, Lisa Hillis

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

Adoption Of Children In Missouri, Mary M. Beck

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Article is to investigate the effect of Missouri law on adoption and to determine whether its provisions adequately protect the parties to adoption and whether its degree of clarity properly forestalls litigation.

"O Wind, Remind Him That I Have No Child": Infertility And Feminist Jurisprudence, Linda J. Lacey

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Feminists have constructed a "grand theory" of infertility and new reproductive techniques that has little to do with reality. Much of the discussion of reproductive technology is written in highly abstract, philosophical terms, rather than in the more experiential, narrative style which characterizes much of feminist jurisprudence. The infertile woman is generally voiceless and invisible in the telling of this story; when she does appear she is dismissed or criticized. This Article is an attempt to begin dialogue which incorporates her perspective into the discussion.