Court Opinion

ID: 9687594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:38:32.316807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:29.139152
License: Public Domain

SACKETT, Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The focal issue in this case is whether parental rights of parents with borderline intelligence and limited financial resources should be terminated to a child with a serious disability that requires constant specialized care. The child spent two and one-half years in the hospital and since that time has lived *110in two foster homes. In both homes, the foster mother was an R.N. with special education in helping the child and, in both homes, the foster parent care was supplemented with specialized nursing care. As the State advances, the child has never been cared for by anyone other than nurses and there are episodes where some of the nurses providing the care have had to be supervised. The bottom line is there are few families with the medical expertise to supply this child’s needs.
The parents say the child should be placed in long-term foster care and their rights should not be terminated because the child is not adoptable.
In In re S.J., 451 N.W.2d 827, 882 (1990), the court said “termination” is an outcome of last resort. To legally end a relationship with an ineffectual but loving and caring mother, without being assured of any hope of permanency with an adoptive family, is of doubtful advantage to S.J.
This child’s best interest would be to place her in a home with two caring, intelligent parents both who have medical training and who would be willing to devote the time to her that she requires. The problem is that I cannot find under this record that opportunity will be available to this child. Rather, the choices we have are should the child be put in permanent foster care with her biological ties intact or should her parents’ parental rights be terminated although there is a strong probability the child will remain in foster care and not be adopted.
Her parents love her and, although they are limited in intelligence, education, and money, they have made an effort and have maintained contact with her. She has siblings. Her family has been the only constant in her life. Social workers, medical personnel, and foster mothers have changed.
The majority states, “we note significant evidence in the record indicating Tissia may be adoptable.” The evidence I find about the possibility of her adoption and the only evidence of her adoptability advanced by the State is the following evidence:
Q. Has there been any groundwork done by you or the Department as to determine whether or not the child, with this extensive of medical needs, is likely to be adopted? A. Yes. I’ve talked with our adoption worker, Bev Ver Steegh, on a staffing on 10/93, and she indicated to me that she has completed some adoptions on children with complex medical needs and that she has a number of families that would be interested in looking at T. as a possible adoptive situation. She does not believe that it would be difficult at all to place T. for adoption. (Emphasis supplied).
I am not ready to find, as did the majority, this is significant evidence. First, it is hearsay. Secondly, we are given no actual numbers of adoptions of children with complex needs; we are given no actual number of families who would look at her for possible adoption. Thirdly, there is no evidence of what type of families would look at the child. Fourthly, there is no evidence of the number of other children in state care who are not adopted. I have fear there is a significant number. Fifth, this child’s significant problems tell me it would take extremely dedicated adoptive parents. She needs twenty-four hour-a-day nursing care. She was four and one-half at the time of the hearing but her developmental age was twelve to eighteen months. She has significant brain disease, secondary to her lung disease with poor oxygenation. She has a gastrostomy feed tube, a tracheostomy breathing tube and her body cannot regulate its own temperature and it must be artificially maintained.
If the child is going to spend her minority in foster homes and/or institutions, even if her parents’ parental rights are terminated, then I find no reason to legally terminate her legal ties to both her parents and siblings.
There is no evidence these parents will be a danger to the child if she is in foster or institutional care. The evidence that forms the basis for this proceeding is that the parents lack the education and ability to care for this child in their home.