Termination Of Parental Rights

Whether you're an adopter traveling halfway around the world to finalize the adoption of your newest family member in Russia or a birth mother you've worked with for the last few months is in the delivery room about to give birth to a child she's decided to place with you, there's one huge legal barrier that protects the rights of a child's availability. That barrier is the termination of parental rights. Some states require birth mothers and fathers who are placing infants to wait one to three days before signing over their parental rights. State laws differ greatly when it comes to these laws, actually. Birth fathers can sometimes terminate their parental rights before the child is born, while other states require an adequate attempt to contact the birth father before these rights can be terminated involuntarily. Further still, some states may even have a window of time after a child is born in which a father can contest the placement of a child even after the birth mother has signed away her parental rights.

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The termination of parental rights is a legal process that allows a child to become adoptable. It generally involves the completion of a Termination of Parental Rights Form, or TRP form. It is what is used to determine whether an international adoptee is of orphan status by U.S. standards and whether, in domestic adoption, the birth parents or court system have deemed a child's birth family incapable or unwilling to raise the child.

Technically, parental rights are not terminated and assumed until an adoption finalization process is completed. At this time, which usually follows a period of supervision by an adoption professional, a case worker may motion for the prospective adoptive parents to assume parental rights of the child and for the termination of the birth parents' parental rights to be finalized. At this time, the child's original birth certificate will be filed in a sealed adoption record with the state. An adoption decree will be issued and a new birth certificate with the adoptive parents' information will be issued to the adoptee.

In a sense, one person's termination of a parental role for his or her biological child means the beginning of a lifetime full of love for an adoptive family and adoptee.