HB 508 wrongly seeks to make shared parenting Ohio’s default option for kids: Nancy Fingerhood

CANFIELD, Ohio — As a member of the National Risk-free Mom and dad Corporation, I am creating about proposed Residence Monthly bill 508, which would generate a presumption for shared parenting in Ohio. I share the want to guarantee the most effective desire of little ones in family members courtroom, but a 50/50 presumption will not meet that aim, specially in conditions where by abuse and security worries are elevated.

Regretably, father’s rights groups this sort of as the National Mothers and fathers Organization (previously Foundation for Fathers and Family members) are exploiting unfounded fears that family members courts are biased against fathers. They are misrepresenting info from Kentucky, and they make the specious claims that, “For mother and father, shared parenting is noticeably correlated with greater youngster assistance compliance and lessened parental conflict and domestic violence.” It appears some Ohio lawmakers, these as condition Rep. Rodney Creech, a most important sponsor of the proposed bill, have fallen for the ruse.

Ohio legislation already enables moms and dads to share parenting rights, tasks and time with their youngsters. Father’s legal rights activists who imagine they have been disenfranchised by females and feminism are pushing presumption-for-shared-parenting payments like HB 508 throughout the nation. They state that their agenda is simply just equality for fathers in relatives court docket and that the presumption for shared parenting can be rebutted if there is evidence of domestic violence and/or youngster abuse.

A 2018 research by End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin identified that a rebuttable presumption of shared parenting did not have the supposed protective result in a superior rate of situations with abuse statements, even the place there was a criminal conviction for domestic violence.

A 2021 draft nationwide examine, “Child Custody Results in Conditions Involving Parental Alienation and Abuse Allegations,” found courts making use of evaluators thought mothers’ abuse statements of any kind only 39% of the time. When fathers alleged mothers had been alienators, “they took custody from her 44% of the time,” the draft examine documented.

In addition, a 1998 Canadian study contradicts the thought some boost that moms fabricate allegations of abuse to get custody. The examine rather located that “noncustodial moms and dads (generally fathers) most commonly make deliberately wrong reports” even though “custodial mothers and fathers (commonly mothers) and children ended up least most likely to fabricate reports of abuse or neglect.”

Though there could be some disagreements amongst separating parents, the wide the vast majority of custody circumstances are settled out of court. Of those people that do stop up in court docket, the the vast majority include domestic violence and child abuse claims. With the higher charge of violence statements in this sort of instances, it would be derelict to start out with a presumption that mom and dad ought to share custodial time equally.

If HB 508 had been adopted, the burden of evidence for domestic violence survivors could come to be insurmountable. In scenarios where by there is a shared parenting settlement, the monthly bill involves “clear and convincing evidence” to rebut “the presumption that a shared parenting settlement is in the very best interest of the boy or girl,” according to nonpartisan analysts at the Legislative Support Fee.

The intersection of domestic violence and child abuse in family members is nicely-documented, still as well many spouse and children court docket judges and other personnel are not properly-versed on the analysis relating to destructive impacts of domestic violence on small children. Without having this understanding, way too frequently they might permit the mother’s abuser to retain custody of the young children.

If we are heading to emphasis our vitality in any way in the spouse and children court docket procedure, enable it be so that judges are ensuring that both dad and mom with selected parenting time are really “fit, ready, and able” to fulfill that job in the best curiosity of the youngsters.

Nancy Fingerhood is a graduate university student in social operate and an advocate for protective parents and kids.

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