Clare Huntington, ‘Pragmatic Family Law’, Harvard Law Review (forthcoming 2023). About two-thirds of states in the US have functional parent doctrines – doctrines that extend at least some parental rights and obligations to an individual based on developing a parent-child bond and parenting the child, regardless of a biological or legal tie to the child. Progressive parentage reforms that dislodge parental recognition from traditional preoccupations with marriage and biology have in recent years spread in states controlled by Democrats, primarily in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Yet, the map of jurisdictions with functional parent doctrines does not look like the electoral college map in the 2020 presidential election. Instead, functional parent doctrines exist in Connecticut and Kentucky, New Jersey and Nebraska, Washington and West Virginia … (more)
[Douglas NeJaime, JOTWELL, 22 February 2023]
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