Grounds For Unfit Parent

Populists are no liberals

Francis Zammit Dimech voted against the di­vorce Bill on its second reading in Parliament. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlan­do voted for it, of course, having proposed it himself. So who is the more liberal of the two? Yes, it’s a trick question and, yes, the right answer is Dr Zammit Dimech.

If you cannot see why, then maybe you don’t know about the strong disagreement between the two that arose last Monday while the parliamentary Committee they both sit on was considering amendments to the Bill. On Tuesday, agreement was reached but the entire discussion revealed some interesting instincts on issues of due process that any liberal order holds dear.

The disagreement arose because Dr Pullicino Orlando wanted the law to state that, at the divorce stage, a father who was found to have abused his child would be declared permanently unfit to have parental custody. Even if the child was later orphaned and had no step-parent.

It sounds reasonable and, given our sensitivity to child abuse, I suspect it would be a very popular clause. However, what Dr Pullicino Orlando considered to be a “cardinal point” of his Bill flies against two cardinal aspects of liberalism in its broadest sense.

First, liberalism gives considerable weight to deliberation. A measure may be popular but it also needs to be thought through to see if it is consistent with the general conditions of liberty. Dr Pullicino Orlando needed to be told that if Parliament were to decide that custody rights could be forfeited permanently, then that was a radical decision that could not simply be taken as an aside while discussing another law. It should rather be the focus of another forum – say, one on child protection.

Second, there’s the matter of rights – the father’s rights. Even a man found to have abused his child retains the right to be reconsidered, to have his case reviewed, if he claims to have changed. Given what we know about paedophilia, the chances of real change are slim. But it violates his rights to rule it out a priori. It would make the law vulnerable to a legal challenge.

In practice, the legal challenge would have been certain because, as Dr Zammit Dimech pointed out during Tuesday’s discussion, the proposed wording was ambiguous enough to permit the inclusion of drug addicts, disregarding rehabilitation.

Even without such ambiguity, however, the provision constituted an anti-liberal threat against not just the father’s guaranteed rights but everyone’s – just as, say, torturing a terrorist violates everyone’s right to be protected from torture. You cannot treat anyone as less than human without losing your own humanity. (It has been reported that the final agreed text permits the court to declare a parent permanently unfit for child custody. While it is better than the original proposal, if it removes the right of review then it is still objectionable on liberal grounds.

No price Adware Removal | The Floating Gallery

By Mark Hoerrner

Gavin can be a precocious 7-year-old boy. He does the items that most boys do?plays, goes to school, plays some a lot more, and spends time with his mother. And his other mother, but only on Tuesdays and each other weekend. Now, he?s in danger of losing one of his mothers because of a strange suit brought by his lesbian birthmother, Sara Wheeler, against her former partner and Gavin?s legally-adoptive second parent, Missy.

The bizarre case evolves not out of a misinterpretation of law, but out of a lack of law on the subject. In Georgia, there isn’t any law that prohibits or particularly authorizes adoptions by gay or lesbian parents. When Gavin was two years old, Sara and Missy decided that Missy should legally adopt Gavin to ensure that both parents would have custody of the child, who was conceived by means of artificial insemination. In an uncharacteristic move, the judge within the case noted that there had been two loving parents?the fact that they had been gay was an afterthought?and granted the adoption.

When Gavin turned four, Sara and Missy split over an affair. Now, birthmother Sara desires to get rid of Missy?s claim to Gavin based on the fact that no legislation existed at the time that would enable such an adoption. Component of her zeal to remove Missy?s claim stems from the fact that Sara now questions her own sexuality. She?s stopped dating altogether.

“I just don’t really feel comfortable in that scene,” Sara Wheeler told the Linked Press. “I’m just attempting to figure it all out.”

Sara has not had significantly luck with Georgia courts. After a DeKalb County judge ruled against her, she took the case to the State Court of Appeals. Once again, she lost her case. She then asked the Georgia State Supreme Court to hear the case, but in February, the court refused to hear the case. Undaunted, she?s producing one more plea to have her day in court but it?s unlikely that the state supreme court will change its mind about hearing the suit.

“There’s absolutely nothing that states this is an acceptable adoption,” she told the Linked Press. “If Georgia wants to allow [such adoptions], it requirements to make appropriate laws.”

The implications of the Wheeler case, however, go far beyond the boundaries of this single relationship, based on Southern Voice Editor Laura Douglas-Brown.

“It?s crucial simply because it has an impact on numerous gay families beyond hers,” Douglas-Brown stated. “I don?t know the Wheelers and who would make the much better parent, but looking for to overturn a second parent adoption just isn’t the solution. If she thinks her former partner is an unfit parent, she wants to seek removal of custody on those grounds.

West's Smith-Hurd Illinois compiled statutes annotated, using the classification and numbering system of the official Illinois compiled statutes, as authorized by Public Act 87-1005, effective January 1, 1993

Parents and children

Memoirs of An Unfit Mother

Domestic torts, family violence, conflict, and sexual abuse

The Pacific reporter