2018 has to be the year Maryland ends parental rights for rapists

LEGISLATION THAT would allow a rape victim to terminate the parental rights of her attacker has been introduced into the Maryland General Assembly nine times. Nine times it has died — making Maryland one of the dwindling few states in the country that requires a woman who becomes pregnant as the result of rape to negotiate custody and adoption decisions with her assailant. As a result, Maryland has been reduced — rightly — to an object of national and international ridicule.

Leaders of the General Assembly are promising a different outcome when lawmakers reconvene next week. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) have signed on as co-sponsors of legislation that would establish a court process to terminate rapists’ parental rights when a child is conceived through rape. “Senate Democratic leadership is going to make clear this is a priority,” Mr. Miller explained in a posting on Facebook, noting “we can make sure victims of rape are protected and not forced to co-parent with their rapists.”

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