Do Rapists Have Custody Rights? In 31 States They do
When an Ohio judge denied a request for Cleveland kidnapping suspect Ariel Castro to visit the 6-year-old girl he fathered with one of the women he kidnapped and raped, the reason seemed pretty clear cut.
“I just think that would be inappropriate,” Cuyahoga County Judge Michael Russo said last month.
The idea that Castro — who will be sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty to 937 counts — would have any parental rights is hard to believe. But in 31 states, rapists do enjoy the rights of a father.
Ohio currently has no laws that would take away Castro’s parental rights for fathering the child with Amanda Berry, who he abducted in 2003 when she was a teenager.
Surviving rape
“I was astonished,” said Shauna Prewitt, who was raped when she was a senior in college.
Her daughter was six months old when she found out that the man who raped her wanted partial custody.
“How could I possibly entrust my beautiful … baby to him,” she wondered, “but beyond that I didn’t know how to spend the next 18 or more years of my life tethered to my attacker.”
Legislation introduced
Prewitt, who was raped at the age of 21, is now a custody rights attorney, and is working to enact new federal guidelines that would push states to pass laws to strip rapists of their parental rights to children they fathered through rape.
Legislation introduced last week — the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act — would do just that.The bill would provide incentives for legal initiatives on the state level to help women secure full custody of children conceived through rape.
“Without such a law, woman can endure years of being tormented by an abuser,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida.