Biological Parents and Custody Hearings

[PerpetualImperfexion]

Should judges be allowed to take into account whether or not a parent is biologically related to a child when making decisions in a custody hearing?

Personally I would say no. They shouldn't be concerned about who is related to the child, they should be worrying about the child's well being. On the other hand it's hard to tell a judges motives and even if they don't straight up say "You're the better pick because you're biologically related" they could still hold a bias toward this idea. So it'd be hard to enforce

[Smeagol]

Well... I think that the person who raised the child is more important than who the biological parent is. Like, if a stepdad was better than a biological dad, he should be the 'father figure' for the child. It seems screwed up to take a kid away from a happy family, it shouldn't matter whose child (as long as its legal and the kid hasn't been kidknapped).

[Kaius]

I completely agree with Maeve. In a lot of cases blood means nothing. Whats to say the biological parent isn't capable of looking after the child but the step parent is? The child should be with a person that loves it and is willing to give it the care it needs, blood hardly comes into it when you think about it properly.

If it came to my biological parents or my adoptive ones I'd choose my adoptive ones any day. They've looked out for me my entire life and given me everything I have today. From what i know about my biological father I think i'm better off here than i would have been there.

[Smeagol]

I live with my birth family, but if they turned out to be not related to me at all I'd still choose them. Mom still tucks me in at night and says good night. If I was suddenly in a new house with people I didn't know who didn't tuck me in at night, I couldn't sleep. I don't think I'm unreasonably clingy... just I love them so much and I've been with them my whole life. If the child has been loved unconditionally by the parents who didn't biologically have the child but adopted it or the dad got remarried and took the child, I still think that the child should be with the family who raised him or her.