National Parents Organization applauds Colorado legislators who are acting on numerous U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have established parenting as a fundamental right and liberty interest.
Colorado legislators joined the national movement to reform the family courts and support shared parenting – a flexible arrangement in which children spend as close to equal time as possible with each parent after separation or divorce – with the filing of the Parent’s Bill of Rights, HB16-1110. The bill establishes parental rights as a fundamental liberty interest and a fundamental right, which encourages family courts to make shared parenting the norm when parents divorce or separate.
The move could be a significant change, considering shared parenting occurs less than 20 percent of the time after separation or divorce, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Thank you, Colorado legislators, for standing up for the crucial yet all-too-often violated rights of parents,” said Dr. Ned Holstein, MD, Founder and Board Chair of National Parents Organization. “No loving and fit parent should ever lose the inherent right to spend significant, meaningful time with his or her child — as research, and common sense have told us many times over.”