Relationship w/ the State

Question 1

What does adoption generally involve?

Answer 1

Termination biological parents’ parental rights and creation of full parental rights in adoptive parents.

Question 2

When must the adoptee consent to an adoption?

Answer 2

In most states when the adoptee is over 14 years old, some are for as low as 12.

Question 3

What is voluntary termination?

Answer 3

Biological parents may voluntarily give up their parental rights this can be waived any time before the final decree of adoption.

Question 4

When is consent of unwed fathers obtained?

Answer 4

• Consent by failure to register within a statutory time period.
• When unwed father doesn’t demonstrate a commitment to fatherhood.

Question 5

What is the Adoption and Safe Families Act provision for the involuntary termination of parental rights?

Answer 5

Parental rights can be involuntarily terminated when a parent has placed a child outside o fthe home and not w/ a relative for 15 of the last 22 months and certain reunification attempts have not been succesful.

Question 6

What is the traditional law of adoption?

Answer 6

An adoption may occur upon a finding that the parent has abandoned the parent child relationship.

Question 7

What are some common grounds for involuntary termination of parental rights?

Answer 7

• Extreme remedy.
• abandonment
• incapacity
  0 abuse of a sibling
• abuse or neglect of the sibling.

Question 8

In assisted reproduction, how is the maternity determined?

Answer 8

By the woman who gives birth to the child unless a gestational agreement says otherwise.

Question 9

Who is the father in an assisted reproduction?

Answer 9

The husband of the woman who gives birth unless the husband pursues an action to say that he did not consent to the reproduction.
- Any action by the husband must commence w/in 2 years of the child’s birth.

Question 10

What are the legal requirements for a surrogacy agreement?

Answer 10

• court must approve
• court must have jurisdiction which continues until child is six months old
• do an inspection of the intended parents
• may not limit the rights of the gestational mother to make healthcare decisions for herself or her embryo.
• a child born w/in 300 days of the gestational agreement is presumed to be the product of assisted reproduction.
• not all states have this.