Parent Who Let Sexual Abuse Happen Could Lose Parental Rights

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/07/2025) The Michigan Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case focused on whether a parent facilitating her child’s sexual abuse by a drug dealer constitutes an aggravated circumstance that should mean the loss of parental rights.

The mother lost her parental rights when she allowed adult males on multiple occasions to sexually abuse her daughter, who was then between the ages of 2 and 9, in exchange for drugs, which the mother used in front of her child.

The trial court placed the woman's two children with their father and ordered that reunification efforts not be made, but the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed that finding, concluding there were no aggravated circumstances warranting termination of the mother’s parental rights.

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Nastassja THOMAS, an attorney with Virtuous Legal Services representing the Lenawee County Department of Health and Human Services, argued the mother’s conduct meets the definition of child abuse and sexual exploitation.

As a result, Thomas encouraged the justices to affirm the trial court’s decision to terminate the mother’s parental rights to her children, ages 14 and 9.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer ROSEN agreed that sexual exploitation is a form of child abuse and that the child’s mother aided and abetted the male abuser.

The mother’s “act of leaving (her daughter) in the motel room with the abuser in exchange for drugs makes her just as culpable as the abuser,” Rosen argued. “… The reality of these cases is that parents regularly allow their children to be abused in exchange for some benefit to them – drugs, rent, money for bills, just to name a few.”

Vivek SANKARAN, an attorney with the University of Michigan Law School’s Child Welfare Appellate Clinic, who represents the mother, did not disagree that sexual exploitation is a form of child abuse.

However, he countered that not all findings of abuse are aggravated circumstances.

Sankaran argued that at its core, this case is about the other side’s “dissatisfaction with the legislative choices made in the juvenile code by the Legislature,” and they want the court to rewrite the plain language of the statute.

Sankaran argued that the state must make some effort to reunify the family and the Legislature’s narrow exceptions to what constitutes “reasonable efforts” should be upheld.