Overview

• According to Tennessee law, child abandonment authorizes the state (the court, in fact) to terminate parental rights. If a parent's rights are terminated, another custodial parent, foster parent or guardian may petition for full custody or adoption. A parent who "repents" by resuming child support payments or visitation may not undo prior failure and is still liable for abandonment.
  
  

What Constitutes Abandonment

• There are different circumstances in which the state may prove abandonment. If a child resides with a guardian due to abuse or neglect, the parent must still visit and support the child. Failure to visit or support the child within four months of the child's removal from the parent's home to the guardian's residence constitutes abandonment. Further, if a parent is incarcerated for four consecutive months but failed to visit or support the child for the four months prior to incarceration, he has abandoned his child.
  
  

Abandonment of Unborn Child

• Tennessee law recognizes the abandonment of children before birth. If an expectant father does not visit the child's mother during pregnancy or pay support to her for four consecutive months prior to the child's birth, he may have his parental rights terminated due to abandonment. However, the court may not revoke parental rights sooner than 30 days after the birth of the child.
  
  

Unfit to Parent

• Tennessee law authorizes a mother to voluntarily surrender to the state infants under 72 hours old, if she believes herself to be unfit or unable to parent. The state provides designated locations, such as firehouses and medical facilities, for mothers to deliver infants. If a mother surrenders an infant, the child is deemed to be abandoned. Unless a father accompanies the mother to surrender the infant, the Department of Children's Services is obliged to publish notice in the newspaper for 30 days to allow a father the opportunity to present himself within 90 days and claim the child. Within this same time (90 days), a mother may reclaim her child. After 90 days, the child is abandoned and parental rights are officially terminated.