Parents have the right to participate in their children’s lives. They are also responsible for providing financial support and meeting the child’s physical needs. However, these parental rights and obligations are not permanent. Courts can modify or terminate them. Parents can even voluntarily sever them.
Parental Rights and Responsibilities
The right to participate in a child’s life covers every aspect, including:
- Legal decisions affecting them
- Where they live
- How they are raised
For example, a parent has the legal authority to make medical decisions on a child’s behalf, including choosing among various treatment options or declining treatment altogether. Similarly, a parent decides a child’s religion, whether it has mainstream or fringe doctrines.
The parent decides the child’s living conditions and location. A parent could send a “troubled” child to a mental hospital or behavioral boot camp, if they choose. They can raise the child in any manner, instilling whatever beliefs they want.
However, all of these rights come with responsibilities. Parents have a legal obligation to avoid knowingly or recklessly endangering their children. They must support their children financially, including providing adequate shelter and food.
Additionally, they must meet the state’s educational requirements by sending their child to public or private schools or homeschooling them.
Michigan has mechanisms in place to ensure a parent’s decisions do not cross the line into abuse or neglect. Doctors may have the legal authority to ignore a parent’s expressed wishes during an emergency that could result in a child’s death.
Likewise, a court could stop a parent from sending a child to a boot camp that endangers the child’s welfare or safety.
How Parental Rights Are Terminated
Parental rights may be terminated by the parent or a court. A parent must voluntarily terminate their rights to surrender a child for adoption. Also, a parent who is unfit to care for their child can voluntarily terminate their rights and surrender them to foster care, a legal guardian, or a relative.
Michigan also empowers courts to involuntarily terminate a parent’s rights. “Involuntary” does not mean that the parent opposes the termination. Instead, it means that the parent has not consented to it.
The most common process for terminating a parent’s rights involuntarily occurs after the child is removed from their parents’ home by the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services. This act places the child under a court’s jurisdiction.
The court holds periodic hearings to determine the child’s long-term status. The following parties can file a motion to involuntarily terminate a parent’s rights:
- County prosecuting attorney
- Department of Health & Human Services or its agencies
- Child
- Child’s guardian
- Custodian of the child, including the other parent
- Foster parent
- Child’s attorney or advocate
The court has two options for terminating parental rights. First, it can terminate on the following statutory grounds:
- Desertion
- Physical abuse of the child or a sibling
- Physical injury that the parent could have prevented
- Failure to rectify the grounds on which the child was removed
- Failure to comply with a guardianship plan
- Neglect
- Inability to provide proper care
- Imprisonment for at least two years
- Potential harm to the child
Second, the court can terminate parental rights if doing so would serve the best interests of the child.
Contact Gucciardo Family Law to Learn More
Terminating parental rights is a serious matter that necessitates a thorough and rigorous legal analysis. Contact us to discuss your situation and how we can help you terminate or defend against termination of parental rights.
