Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland

Re: Child abadonment

There is no Maryland law which automatically, after a period of no contact, extinguishes a parent's parental rights or his parental obligation to support the child. However, if you can convince a court that after years of neglect by a parent it would be harmful to the child for the parent to re-enter the child's life, visitation might be denied or severely limited. It is usually very easy to convince the court that a parent who has been absent for a long period and is virtually unknown to the child should not have the right to suddenly return and demand long periods of unsupervised visitation. The court will usually agree to a "get acquainted" period of very short, regular visits of a few hours before any overnight or longer visits are permitted. You can ask that the absent parent be required to demonstrate some intent to remain a part of the child's life, and not disappear again after a short time, and you can probably make a case that it would be cruel to the child for a parent to establish a relationship, win some feeling of affection from the child, and then disappear again. You might, if you can afford to, want to bring to court a counselor or psychologist who could testify that a child is left with a harmful sense of rejection when a parent behaves that way.

Re: Child abadonment

No, this is fiction. Parental rights are lost only where the parent agrees to such and court approval issues. Adoption is one way for this to occur.

Years of abandonment can be a basis for gaining full physical and legal custody but a bio parent still has a parental right to visitation.