Opinion ID: 1984720
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Intelligence Quotient

Text: We note that the record in this case includes the intelligence quotient (I.Q.) of each of the natural parents. The proper approach is to be taken with regard to this data is given in a 1955 opinion of this Commonwealth's Supreme Court. It is a serious matter for the long arm of the state to reach into a home and snatch a child from its mother. It is a power which a government dedicated to freedom for the individual should exercise with extreme care, and only where the evidence clearly establishes its necessity . . . A child cannot be declared neglected merely because his condition might be improved by changing his parents. The welfare of many children might be served by taking them from their homes and placing them in what the officials consider a better home. But the Juvenile Court Law was not intended to provide a procedure to take the children of the poor and give them to the rich, nor to take the children of the illiterate and give them to the educated, nor to take the children of the crude and give them to the cultured, nor to take the children of the weak and sickly and give them to the strong and healthy. Rinker Appeal, 180 Pa.Super. 143 at 148, 117 A.2d 780 at 783 (1955). The score of parents on an intelligence test is not a relevant factor in the decision-making process involved in a termination of parental rights case. It is the demonstrated willingness and ability of the parents to perform, at a minimal level, their parental duties that is dispositive. Nothing else is pertinent to the court's enquiry. Of course, it is possible that a parent of limited intelligence may, as a consequence, encounter difficulties in fulfilling his role as a parent. However, it is to be strongly emphasized that a parent must not be doubly handicapped for his intellectual handicap through court recognition of it. We repeat that any detriment he may have in this area is simply not pertinent. If, on the other hand, that detriment is reflected in an incapacity to properly protect his child's physical and emotional welfare  it is that behavior which must be looked to. Equality under the law demands no less. It is a basic premise of the law of parental termination that the best interests of the child cannot be examined until after the court is satisfied that the parent cannot, and will not, be able to be a proper parent to his children. Perhaps a child might have greater advantages if he were raised in a home with foster or adopted parents of normal or high intelligence. But the state cannot intrude into the sacred sphere of the family unit and sever parent/child ties on that basis. There is no indication that the court below gave any impermissible weight to the I.Q. information. Not only was it not referred to in that court's opinion, but there was other, ample information on which he could base his decision. On the facts of this case it is regrettably clear that the natural parents have not and will not be able to provide a home and family environment of at least a consistently minimal level.