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Guh. If I don't answer this one, it's just going to continue to annoy me, sitting there every time I hit LJ, so...
Short answers: No, and yes.
Long answer: Merely having a functional reproductive system does not imbue a person with parenting skills, and merely having a biological connection to a child does not give you eternal ownership of her. If you can't be bothered to properly care for your kids, you have given up the right to have them. Period.
My emotional side thinks there ought to be restrictions on breeding in the first place for some people who have proven that they're rotten parents, but that's not a legal precedent I want to set (bodily autonomy and all that.) Rather, I think we ought to be far more willing to take children away from abusive or neglectful parents, and sever parental rights far quicker than we do now.
There's a pervasive and entirely incorrect attitude that it's more traumatic for a child to lose contact with his or her biological parents than it is for that child to remain with bad ones, and that has to stop. "Keeping families together" should not be the primary goal of CPS; keeping children in safe, loving homes should be. CPS as it stands focuses way, way too much on the "rights" of the parent to keep their child, as if she were some sort of pet or posession. It should be focused on the right of children to be cared for and loved properly, regardless of biological connection.
Far, far too many children are languishing in foster care well beyond the point at which they've already dissolved their bond with their bio families, and created one with the new ones. The single greatest factor in emotional health for a child is a stable home life with committed, consistent adult caregivers. Bouncing kids around in foster care and bio family homes instead of just making a clean break and giving them to someone who will take care of them permanently is destroying these kids' lives.
IMHO, abuse or neglect should result in automatic termination of parental rights. Substance abuse, criminal behavior, etc. that doesn't directly result in harm to the child can be treated differently, but if you reoffend after you've gotten out of jail or rehab, then you're done. Your kid shouldn't have to suffer because you can't get your shit together.
Why yes, I do have a personal stake in this issue...
Guh. If I don't answer this one, it's just going to continue to annoy me, sitting there every time I hit LJ, so...
Short answers: No, and yes.
Long answer: Merely having a functional reproductive system does not imbue a person with parenting skills, and merely having a biological connection to a child does not give you eternal ownership of her. If you can't be bothered to properly care for your kids, you have given up the right to have them. Period.
My emotional side thinks there ought to be restrictions on breeding in the first place for some people who have proven that they're rotten parents, but that's not a legal precedent I want to set (bodily autonomy and all that.) Rather, I think we ought to be far more willing to take children away from abusive or neglectful parents, and sever parental rights far quicker than we do now.
There's a pervasive and entirely incorrect attitude that it's more traumatic for a child to lose contact with his or her biological parents than it is for that child to remain with bad ones, and that has to stop. "Keeping families together" should not be the primary goal of CPS; keeping children in safe, loving homes should be. CPS as it stands focuses way, way too much on the "rights" of the parent to keep their child, as if she were some sort of pet or posession. It should be focused on the right of children to be cared for and loved properly, regardless of biological connection.
Far, far too many children are languishing in foster care well beyond the point at which they've already dissolved their bond with their bio families, and created one with the new ones. The single greatest factor in emotional health for a child is a stable home life with committed, consistent adult caregivers. Bouncing kids around in foster care and bio family homes instead of just making a clean break and giving them to someone who will take care of them permanently is destroying these kids' lives.
IMHO, abuse or neglect should result in automatic termination of parental rights. Substance abuse, criminal behavior, etc. that doesn't directly result in harm to the child can be treated differently, but if you reoffend after you've gotten out of jail or rehab, then you're done. Your kid shouldn't have to suffer because you can't get your shit together.
Why yes, I do have a personal stake in this issue...
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