Adoption

Adoption is the legal process by which a person other than a child’s biological parent establishes the parent-child relationship with a child in a manner which is recognized by the legal system. Upon the legal establishment of the parent-child relationship, an adoptive parent has the same rights and duties with regard to the child as a biological parent does to his/her child. Further, once the adoption is judicially granted, the biological parents no longer have any rights to the child, although the child may still inherit from the biological parents. The only exceptions are with regard to a step-parent adoption and second-parent adoption, in which case the parent whose new spouse is adopting the child continues to maintain all the same rights and duties he or she had prior to the adoption.