Parents' Rights in Oregon
In Oregon, parental rights depend on your legal relationship with your child. You have different rights if you’re a legal parent, custodial parent, or non-custodial parent.
Key definitions
- Natural parent: Someone who provides sperm or eggs to help create a child. Natural parents aren't always legal parents.
- Legal parent: A person recognized by the state of Oregon as having parental rights and responsibilities for a child. Legal parents include:
- Married parents who have a child during their marriage or within 300 days after their divorce
- Unmarried moms who give birth to a child
- Unmarried dads who sign official paperwork stating they are their child's legal parent (like a birth certificate)
- People who go through a court or agency proceeding (like adoption or paternity) to become a legal parent
- Custodial parent: A parent who goes through a divorce, custody, or legal separation court case and is awarded legal custody of a child through that case.
- Non-custodial parent: The parent not awarded custody in a custody, divorce, or legal separation proceeding.
Rights of legal parents
Legal parents have fundamental rights like:
- The right to see their child
- The right to raise their child how they think is best
- The right to make medical, educational, and other important decisions
- The right to choose where their child lives
- The right to get government identification for their child
- The right to make financial decisions for their child
Rights of non-custodial parents
Even if you don't get custody, you still have rights. Unless your court paperwork says otherwise, you can:
- See your child regularly according to the parenting schedule in your court paperwork
- Make day-to-day parenting decisions when your child is with you
- Make emergency medical decisions for your child when they’re with you
- Get information from your child’s school about how your child is doing in school
- See your child’s government and law enforcement records
- Get medical information from your child’s medical providers
- Ask the court for help if the other parent isn’t following the parenting schedule or your parenting plan
Rights of custodial parents
As a custodial parent, you have the most rights. In addition to all the rights listed above, you also have these rights:
- Primary responsibility for your child
- Primary decision-making authority, including the right to make medical and education decisions
- The right to get help from the court if the non-custodial parent takes your child
- The right to ask the court for help with significant parenting disagreements
Caution: Custodial parents don't have the right to choose when the other parent sees their child! If a judge decides on legal custody, the judge will also decide on the parenting plan for the child. Both parents must follow this plan.
Rights of natural parents (who aren't legal parents)
If you are only the natural parent of a child, you have no parental rights until you become a legal parent. You can become a legal parent and get parental rights through a process known as establishing paternity or parentage. You can go here for more information on becoming a legal parent.
FAQs About Parents' Rights in Oregon
It's not easy to sign away your rights in Oregon.
If you create a child, you're responsible for that child, including paying child support, until someone else steps in and agrees to take over that responsibility for you.
Here are the main ways you can give up or lose your parental rights:
- Another person agrees to adopt your child and your rights are terminated through an adoption court case
- The state terminates your parenting rights because you are abusing or neglecting your child
No. Even if you don't get custody after going through a court case, you still have many parental rights. Your rights are defined by what's in your court papers as well as Oregon laws.
In most cases (unless your court papers say otherwise), you can still:
- See your child regularly according to the parenting schedule in your court paperwork
- Make day-to-day parenting decisions when your child is with you
- Make emergency medical decisions for your child when they’re with you
- Get information from your child’s school about how your child is doing in school
- See your child’s government and law enforcement records
- Get medical information from your child’s medical providers
- Ask the court for help if the other parent isn’t following the parenting schedule or your parenting plan
Agreements made outside of a court case are not legal documents. Neither parent has to follow the agreement. Either parent can change their mind at any time. You have the same rights as legal parents in this situation.
To make your agreement legal, you must start a court case:
- If you’re not married to the other parent: You must start a custody case and go through the custody case process. If you’re ready to start a custody case, go to this page for more information on custody.
- If you are married to the other parent: you will need to start a divorce case and go through the divorce case process. If you’re ready to start a divorce case, visit this page for more information.
Warning: Notarizing a parenting agreement does not make it a legal agreement. You must go through the court to make your agreement legal.
Any legal parent can ask for child support from the other parent. Child support is a monthly cash payment that one parent pays to another parent. Usually, the parent who has the children the majority of the time gets child support from the other parent.
If you want to see how much child support you can get, you can use Oregon's online child support calculator.
It depends.
- If you don’t have a custody order: Either parent can keep their child away from the other parent. However, parents should be cautious about doing this. If a parent goes to court for custody later, a judge will pay attention to the parent’s reasons for not letting the other parent see the child.
- If you have a custody order: Both parents must follow the parenting plan that comes with the custody order. If a parent doesn’t follow the parenting schedule, the other parent can ask the court for help. Go here for more information on what to do when a parent doesn’t follow court orders.
- If you are in the middle of a custody or divorce case: It depends on whether the court made temporary orders in your case. A temporary order is a legal document you must follow during a court case. It goes away when you finish your case and get a final decision from the court. If you’re unsure whether there is a temporary order, call your local circuit court and ask.
It depends.
- If you are a legal parent but don't have a custody order: You can legally take your child from the other parent. But if you do this:
- Think about what’s best for your child
- Don’t do anything that will hurt your child physically, mentally, or emotionally
- Don’t use violence or break any laws
- If you have a custody order: You can ask for help from the courts and police. Go here for more information on what to do when a parent doesn’t follow court orders.
- If you are in the middle of a custody case: It depends on whether a judge signed any temporary orders in your case. A temporary order is a legal document you must follow during a court case. It goes away when you finish your case. If you don't have a temporary order, you can legally take your child (see the first item in this list). If you have a temporary order, you can get help from the courts or police (see the second item in this list). If you’re unsure whether there is a temporary order, call your local circuit court and ask.