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Foster care bill could allow for faster termination of parental rights - North Carolina Health News <br />https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2019/08/27/foster-care-bill-allows-faster-parental-rights-termination/[8/28/2019 9:53:12 AM] <br />Marleigh was placed into foster care and Lankford was allowed only an hour’s visitation each <br />week. <br />“It was so painful to see her,” she said. “Having to give her back and then wait a week to see <br />her again, it destroyed me, it was the worst thing I ever had to go through in my life. And having <br />to put her back in her car seat and hear her scream and all because she didn’t want to lose <br />me.” <br />Often, after those meetings, Lankford said she would go out and use, to dull the pain. <br />Legal labyrinth <br />The bill would add several changes to North Carolina’s legal code. It would change the law to <br />allow for removal of a child born to a woman who was using drugs that are “not medically <br />based,” who a judge deemed “unable to discharge parental responsibilities due to a history of <br />chronic drug abuse.” The bill also adds requires an assessment by a “licensed health care <br />provider with substance abuse disorders experience,” that the mother would continue using <br />substances “for a prolonged or indeterminate period” for removal of custody. <br />“These babies have an addiction because their mothers abused them while they were in the <br />womb, in utero,” said Tami Fitzgerald, head of the North Carolina Values Coalition. “These <br />mothers have already demonstrated a lack of responsibility to parent their child, because the <br />child has to overcome an addiction when the child is born and they languish in NICU units and <br />hospitals across the state for months.” <br />Others spoke against that same provision, including Evette Horton, a psychologist at the UNC <br />Horizons Program, a substance abuse treatment program for women and their children. <br />“I have been doing this for 10 years,” she told the committee. “I have seen, literally, hundreds, <br />thousands of women come through our program, and I’ve seen many women with opioid use <br />disorders and other substance use disorders get better.”