Southern California Family Law Attorney Blog

When a person is raped, it may be a common opinion that a child resulting from the violent act is unwanted and unwelcome, although the reality may be totally different. Despite the emotional and physical trauma of the violence, many women choose to raise the child rather than have an abortion or give the child up for adoption, and may be faced with a surprising factor when dealing with child custody issues. Although the rapist may be the biological parent, many feel that they should not be allowed to have parental rights regarding any child conceived during the act of rape.

Lawmakers have introduced a new bill in response to the close to 11,000 women every year who fight to keep parental rights from rapists. The bill would allow the survivors to keep full custody of any child that was conceived from a rape.

19 states in the country have protection for rape victims, but only six of those meet the standards that are set in the new bill. 31 states have no protection in place for the child custody rights of rape victims, and some survivors have been forced to endure long relationships with their rapist because their children are forced to see them.

The bill is addressing the issue of biological paternity and whether or not that is the most important factor in child custody cases. Some rapists will use parental rights as a bargaining tool, asking survivors to drop criminal charges rather than give up full custody, and lawmakers are hoping to circumvent this issue by denying parental rights to rapists.

Source: Opposing Views, "Rape Survivor Child Custody Act introduced in House, aims to strip rapists of child custody rights," Jonathan Wolfe, July 26, 2013