On Monday, June 22, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed two bills touching on the termination of parental rights. Both bills now move to the Pennsylvania Senate. House Bill 133 (HB 133) would add a section to Pennsylvania law providing a pathway for the restoration of parental rights after those rights have been terminated. And House Bill 138 (HB 138) provides that parental incarceration alone shall not be grounds for the termination of parental rights. Both bills are championed by Rep. Rick Krajewski, a Democrat representing West Philadelphia. Under HB 138, an incarcerated parent can retain parental rights if their crime was not one of physical or sexual abuse against the child, and as long as they “mak[e] efforts to the extent feasible to comply with family service plan requirements and otherwise maintain a meaningful role in the child’s life during the time of incarceration.” This means a parent incarcerated for a non-violent crime doesn’t necessarily lose their rights to their children for life (nor do their children lose their rights to connection with their parents) simply due to their incarceration. Of course, the parents lose custody for the time they are in jail, but their relationship is not terminated and can be resumed when the incarcerated parent has served their time. This bill will result in fewer children needing permanent placements through the Office of Children, Youth, and Families (CYF), as many children can be returned to their parents’ care after the incarceration period. Reducing the number of family terminations is a very good thing, and the Parental Rights Foundation supports this bill to keep families together. Unlike HB 138, which aims to preserve families, HB 133 would restore families whose rights have already been terminated. As in other states with similar laws, HB 138 would only apply under certain conditions: Only a (former, rights-terminated) parent, a lawyer representing said parent, a lawyer representing the child, or the agency (CYF) can apply to the court for a restoration of parental rights; They can only do so after at least fifteen months have passed since the termination order was completed or once the child turns 17 years old; and They can only do so if either the child is still in the custody of the Agency with no petition for adoption underway, or the child has been returned to the Agency after a failed adoption. In other words, if no one else has claimed the child in the interim, their original parents can attempt to have them returned. As in other states, the restoration of parental rights once they have been terminated is an uphill climb for the parent. They have to show that the conditions which led to the termination have been significantly changed and that their child will now be safe with them again. But that is as one would expect, if the termination of parental rights was for legal cause in the first place, as the court must assume it was. (Every year, far too many families are permanently separated through the termination of parental rights, including innocent families who should never have been separated in the first place. But later courts do not have the luxury of assuming a termination was wrong; they have to assume that it was correct and make sure its reversal is safe for the children involved.) HB 133, then, will not be a silver bullet allowing parents whose rights were wrongfully terminated to retry their termination and be exonerated. But it does provide a path, albeit an arduous one, by which families can be reunited after a termination. For that reason, the Parental Rights Foundation supports HB 133, as well. (To learn more about the termination of parental rights and its impact on families, check out our EPPiC Broadcast episode with Alex Cinney and Toia Potts here. ) Both bills passed the House Appropriations Committee on Monday, and immediately went to the House Floor. HB 133 passed by a vote of 191-11, and HB 138 passed by a vote of 200-2. As a result, both bills have been submitted to the Pennsylvania Senate for its consideration. What You Can Do If you live in Pennsylvania , consider reaching out to your state senator (the one in Harrisburg, not the ones in D.C.) and urge their support of HB 133 and HB 138 when they come to the Senate for a vote. You can find your lawmaker’s contact information here. And if you don’t live in Pennsylvania , check your state’s laws, or check with your state lawmakers, to see if your state has or could use a law like HB 138 to keep families together beyond a parent’s incarceration, or a law like HB 133 to allow families to be reunited after a termination of parental rights. Together, we can bring good laws like these to additional states, preserving or restoring families all over the country. Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents through these and other efforts in the legislature and in the courts.
For nearly 20 years, first as ParentalRights.org and now as the Parental Rights Foundation , we have kept you up-to-date on the rapidly changing landscape of parental rights across the country. Whether we were releasing new research, tracking legislative developments, or highlighting key parental rights issues making headlines, our goal has been to provide reliable information and analysis you can trust. Now we plan to do the very same thing in a new medium: text messages. Our regular newsletters will continue to come right to your inbox, and we can continue to send legislative alerts there, as well. But if you would like, you can now sign up to receive text messages from the Parental Rights Foundation. By subscribing, you'll receive timely alerts about significant parental rights developments, important Foundation resources, research publications, and opportunities to stay informed and engaged. Text messages will allow us to share critical updates more quickly than email when important events occur. We will not send ads. We will not blow up your phone with unwanted fluff. (And we won’t give your info to anyone else, either!) Instead, next legislative season, you can get alerts directly to your phone, complete with links you can use to take action, right there in the palm of your hand. Whether or not you sign up for this service, we will continue to update you by email just as we always have. But if you'd like to receive timely updates directly to your phone, this new service is for you! To receive these updates, simply sign up on our website today.
Last year’s Supreme Court decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor won’t do families any good if schools continue to ignore it for want of official guidance from the federal government. That’s essentially the message we sent in a letter to the U.S. Department of Education last week. In June of 2025, the Supreme Court issued a favorable ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor , a case over whether parents have a right to opt their children out of materials in the public schools that the parents find objectionable for religious reasons. The litigants, including Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic families, argued that the Baltimore County School System violated their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children by undermining the parents’ religious instruction to their children. The Court sided with the parents. But a full year later, reports are coming in from around the country of school systems continuing the practice, pushing content on even their youngest students without concern or respect for parents’ objections. In a few places, like California, the pressure to ignore family autonomy and ride roughshod over parents’ rights comes from the state. But in most instances, these decisions are being made at the local level. And I am gratified to see parents battling at the local level to bring their own local school boards into line with constitutional parental rights. But the federal government has a key role to play in situations like this, too. A lot of education dollars come through the federal government, and those funds come with strings attached; only those states who play by the federal rules get the federal dollars. (The Parental Rights Foundation does not hold a position on whether this should be how the system works; we merely observe that this is how the system works.) And that means that states and localities alike need to be mindful of any official guidance that comes down from the Department of Education. Ignoring such guidance can result in a loss of federal funding. This is why the absence so far of federal guidance on the application of Mahmoud is so disappointing, especially from an Administration seeking to be favorable to families and to parental rights. What’s more, federal dollars should not be used to support education sources that are actively and intentionally violating fundamental, constitutionally protected rights, such as the rights of parents recognized in the Mahmoud case. “In some places, the response to the Mahmoud decision has been disappointing, at best,” says Parental Rights Foundation board chairman and constitutional law professor emeritus William Wagner. “Clear guidance from the federal government can help put these school districts back on the proper legal footing, one that respects the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children.” In short, as schools and administrators seek clarity regarding parental rights and constitutional protections, we urged the Department of Education to issue guidance that those educational professionals can rely on to properly apply the principles set forth in Mahmoud . Parental rights are fundamental, Supreme Court recognized rights that deserve protection and respect. If such guidance is issued, as we hope it will be, we will let you know and celebrate the win together. Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents.
Last week I attended the policy summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an association of conservative policy organizations, private sector organizations, and state lawmakers, to present the need to take up reform legislation. Specifically, I presented the need to replace “anonymous reporting” with “confidential reporting” to child abuse hotlines. The following is taken from…
The post Why We Need “Confidential Reporting” Reform appeared first on Parental Rights Foundation.
Ideas that take root in the United Nations have an unsettling tendency to eventually make their way into America’s courtrooms. That’s why the Parental Rights Foundation submitted a comment to the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Child Privacy last month, urging respect for the privacy of the child’s family and home, and not just the…
The post Do Children Have a Right to Family Privacy? appeared first on Parental Rights Foundation.
The second season of the Parental Rights Podcast launched Tuesday, under a different name: the EPPiC Broadcast. Launched in January of this year, the Parental Rights Podcast’s first season featured such guests as the Jennifer Pelletier family, law professor Maxine Eichner, New York City activist Joyce McMillan, and constitutional law professor William Wagner. Season one…
The post New Name, Same Aim appeared first on Parental Rights Foundation.