In 2000 in Troxel v. Granville, four United States Supreme Court justices determined that the “liberty interests of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children” generally foreclose states from compelling ...

A natural father is usually afforded under American law the unique "opportunity... to develop a relationship with his offspring" born to an unwed mother as a result of consensual sexual intercourse. This paternity opportunity ...

When former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate John Edwards (finally) declared his paternity of Quinn, born of sex to Rielle Hunter, many assumed he could then begin to raise as well as financially support the child ...

Actual genetic ties do not always establish, or even help to establish, legal paternity of children born of consensual sex, that is, male parental rights and/or duties as of the time of birth. Paternity status, typically ...

Safe Haven laws allow genetic mothers to abandon their newborns with no questions asked. Newborns are then protected from potential abuse or neglect and can be adopted at an early age into loving and welcoming families. ...

Public policy demands that American lawmakers, both federal and state, more vigorously promote the early, accurate, informed, and conclusive designations of fathers in law around the time children are born. There is, in ...

American state parentage laws have traditionally required biological or adoptive ties and no more than two parents for any one child at any one time. Biological ties were demonstrated by giving birth or sperm. Adoptive ...

In newborn adoptions in the United States, the participation rights of too many unwed, fit biological fathers are unfairly considered. Some fathers have little or uncertain information about their children prior to or at ...

In 1983 in Lehr v. Robertson, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that paternity opportunity interests for biological fathers in children born to unwed mothers usually implicate federal constitutional life, liberty or property ...

This paper begins by examining federal paternity standards involving voluntary paternity acknowledgments of children born to unmarried women. These standards are increasingly important as voluntary acknowledgments are now ...