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22 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 371 (1996-1997)
Parent's Rights vs. Children's Interests: The Case of the Foster Child

handle is hein.journals/nyuls22 and id is 381 raw text is: PARENTS' RIGHTS VS. CHILDREN'S INTERESTS: THE CASE OF THE FOSTER CHILD MARSHA GARRISON* Introduction ......................................................... I. Parental Rights Termination in Context ..................... A. The Evolution of the Modem Foster Care System ....... B. The Child's Need for Permanence: A Newly Discovered Problem Meets a Newly Available Solution .............. II. Termination vs. Preservation of Parental Contact: Which Serves Children's Interests? .................................. A. Mechanisms for Ensuring Permanence: Adoption and Its Alternatives .............................................. B. Foster Care and Divorce: Are They Comparable? ...... C. Do Absent Parents Matter? ............................. III. Why Has Adoption Been Preferred to Alternatives That Preserve the Parent-Child Relationship? ..................... A. Termination vs. Preservation of Parental Contact: Practical Constraints and Confluent Adult Interests ..... B. The Cultural Symbolism of Adoption .................... IV. Adoption's Symbolic Benefits: Their Hidden Costs ......... A. Overestimation of the Benefits of Foster Care Alternatives .............................................. B. Categorical Decisionmaking that Ignores Children's N eeds .................................................... C. Obscuring Benefits to the State Child Welfare System... D. The Sacrifice of Children's Emotional Needs ............ Conclusion .......................................................... 371 374 374 376 377 377 379 380 386 386 387 390 390 391 393 394 396 INTRODUCriON In recent years, advocates for children have often asserted that paren- tal rights conflict with children's interests. Deference to parental rights, some have claimed, ensures that children are treated more like property than people.' * Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. 1. See, e.g., George H. Russ, Through the Eyes of a Child, Gregory K. A Child's Right to Be Heard, 27 FAM. L.Q. 365, 388 (1993) (Children are literally 'repossessed' by their biological parents in the same manner as though they were property, capable of own- ership, without independent human rights of their own.). A number of academic commen- tators have voiced similar concerns. See, e.g., ELIZABemT BARTHoLr, FAMiLy BoNms: ADopnrioN AND HmF PoLnncs OF PARENTING 50 (1993 (discussing ways in which adoption 371 Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. Review of Law and Social Change

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