Family Law

Child abandonment is an action that affects children negatively from a psychological point of view. Many parents try their best to avoid putting their children in this position, but when it is inevitable the natural parents have to part ways. In such a case, it is usually expected that the two parents would not break links with their children to avoid being considered as those that have abandoned them. There, however, comes a time when it becomes hard to ascertain whether or not a given parent indeed abandoned a child. An example of such situation is the one handled in this case study, in which one parent was incarcerated for a given period of time (Taylor, 2010).

1.There is no doubt that if the foster parents were not willing and ready to adopt Annette, chances are that the outcome of the case would have been different. The court would make a ruling taking into consideration what is best for the child. It is however difficult to say if the father of the child would be willing to have the custody of the child, because during the case his argument was not necessarily aimed at having custody, but was, instead, aimed at ensuring that his parental rights on the child would not be taken away. It is, therefore, important to note here that the fact that Annette’s mother had abandoned her would compel the court to seek the knowledge of whether or not the child would be in caring hands if her father was given the chance to take care of her. If the father shows great potential of taking care of the child, then there is a chance that the court would rule to have him retain the parental rights (Carter, 2009).

Another consideration that would be made is whether or not the child was willing to have the father as the parent. For instance, the child would most definitely wish to have someone she would view as a parent as compared to being sent in a group home. The wishes of a child might have been taken into consideration now that there was no solid proof to show that indeed the father of the child exercised neglect. From the evidence provided in the court by the father, it makes sense when he argues that even though he is not interested in having the custody of the child, his main aim was to retain the fact that he had some parental rights on Annette regardless of the actions that had been taken by the mother (State Court Watch, 2005).

2. When a legal standard of termination of parental is being made on a given case, it is important to take into consideration the current state of affairs. People change their attitudes to things or other people and with the time passing a person realizes that at one point he/she made a mistake, and purposes to make changes in his/her life. The court by basing their ruling about the fathers abandonment on the fact that he had not acted earlier when similar situations were presented to him, it becomes a good example of cases in which the possibility of a person having changed is not taken into consideration (Melissa, 2009).

It is important for the court to try and understand the exact environment, in which a person may have acted at one point in time. By taking this into consideration there is a high likelihood that the court may salvage a reunion between family members by ensuring that the parents, who had been pushed away by circumstance, get the opportunity to live together with their children again (Meyer, 2010).