Parental Rights in Virginia

Virginia Parental Rights News

Parental Rights to Overcome Disability Discrimination

February 22, 2018

Efforts Are Underway This Year to Significantly Improve the Legal Landscape for Parents with Disabilities. Current Disability Discrimination in Parental Rights For decades, parents with disabilities have entered the courtroom with the deck stacked against them. The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation reported in 2016 that “35 states include disability as grounds for termination of…

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Virginia State Law and Parental Rights

Protected

We did it! Thanks in part to your support, Virginia passed a statute in 2013 to protect the role of parents. Virginia law Section 1-240.1 provides:

A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent's child.

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Virginia Courts and Parental Rights

Affirmed, and Protected Under Statute

L.F. v. Breit, 736 SE 2d 711 - Va: Supreme Court (2013):

"The relationship between a parent and child is a constitutionally protected liberty interest under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.7 Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65 (2000); Wyatt v. McDermott, 283 Va. 685, 692, 725 S.E.2d 555, 558 (2012) (“We recognize the essential value of protecting a parent's right to form a relationship with his or her child.”); Copeland, 282 Va. at 198, 715 S.E.2d at 19. Indeed, the Supreme Court of the United States has characterized a parent's right to raise his or her child as “perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.” Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65. Any statute that seeks to interfere with a parent's fundamental rights survives constitutional scrutiny only if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. McCabe v. Commonwealth, 274 Va. 558, 563, 650 S.E.2d 508, 510 (2007); see also Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 721 (1997)."