Sep 22, 2026 · 37 min · 9 segments
Sarah Katz, Clinical Professor of Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law, and April Lee, founder of Philly Voice for Change, join us to discuss a Pennsylvania proposal that would allow…
Sarah KatzGuestApril LeeGuestMichael RameyHostSo what is the cost to the child to have their parents' rights terminated? Like one of my scholar friends doesn't like the term termination of parental rights because it's not just the parents.
I mean, the cause is immeasurable, right? Like how do you calculate the cost of something
Those rights ascend to siblings, grandparents, aunties, uncles, their entire village once those rights are terminated.
That's not just the children losing their rights to their family and family losing the rights to their children, but that emotional piece and those outcomes that we know that data shows, right? What happens when children are taken away from their families, from their communities and from their culture, how they fear and how they are more likely to suffer from a lot of different issues.
Like the data has kind of you know, always been there, but it is very something hard to calculate, right?
I mean, it's some of the work that I've been engaged in with April and my collaborator and friend, Corey Best, right, around sort of telling a true narrative, telling true narratives about the cost of termination of parental rights.
to everyone, right? And so, I mean, the costs go beyond the child and the parent themselves individually, but also the costs are to the family at large, to the community, to the entire people.
And I really think of it as kind of those costs spreading kind of forward and backward and sideways in time, right? And that loss of lineage and connection to ancestry.
And I think the other thing is, I mean, again, just to name some of, we talk about telling a truer narrative, we also have to name some of the myths that are attached to this.
Like the law is telling a story that we are doing this, that we are using the civil death penalty because it's needed, because it keeps children safe, because it's protecting children and putting them in situations where they will, you know, we tell the story that this will allow them to be adopted and have a loving home.
But of course, built into that as a myth, they didn't come from a loving home, right? That there wasn't pain attached to that separation and severance of the bond.
And we know that children are not always adopted, right? We have lots of kids that age out every year without any legal connection to family because rights have been terminated and no adoption has been happened.
We also know that even when children are adopted, that some percentage of those adoptions disrupt
either reenter the foster system or end up in other sorts of situations, sometimes back with family and sometimes not.
So what is the cost to the child to have their parents' rights terminated? Like one of my scholar friends doesn't like the term termination of parental rights because it's not just the parents.
I mean, the cause is immeasurable, right? Like how do you calculate the cost of something
Those rights ascend to siblings, grandparents, aunties, uncles, their entire village once those rights are terminated.
That's not just the children losing their rights to their family and family losing the rights to their children, but that emotional piece and those outcomes that we know that data shows, right? What happens when children are taken away from their families, from their communities and from their culture, how they fear and how they are more likely to suffer from a lot of different issues.
Like the data has kind of you know, always been there, but it is very something hard to calculate, right?
I mean, it's some of the work that I've been engaged in with April and my collaborator and friend, Corey Best, right, around sort of telling a true narrative, telling true narratives about the cost of termination of parental rights.
to everyone, right? And so, I mean, the costs go beyond the child and the parent themselves individually, but also the costs are to the family at large, to the community, to the entire people.
And I really think of it as kind of those costs spreading kind of forward and backward and sideways in time, right? And that loss of lineage and connection to ancestry.
And I think the other thing is, I mean, again, just to name some of, we talk about telling a truer narrative, we also have to name some of the myths that are attached to this.
Like the law is telling a story that we are doing this, that we are using the civil death penalty because it's needed, because it keeps children safe, because it's protecting children and putting them in situations where they will, you know, we tell the story that this will allow them to be adopted and have a loving home.
But of course, built into that as a myth, they didn't come from a loving home, right? That there wasn't pain attached to that separation and severance of the bond.
And we know that children are not always adopted, right? We have lots of kids that age out every year without any legal connection to family because rights have been terminated and no adoption has been happened.
We also know that even when children are adopted, that some percentage of those adoptions disrupt
either reenter the foster system or end up in other sorts of situations, sometimes back with family and sometimes not.
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