hi i am wondering if anyone knows if iowa or any other states ways of law consider on taking away a fathers parental rights involuntarily...this is because recently my sons father has tried to come back in his life after 3 years, my son is three and a half, he has hit my before while i was pregnant, we were never married and never lived together, i live only an hour away and never let him know where i lived because i was attending college and needed to stay focused on that...now he has recently got engaged to a woman who has a charge on her that she was sent to prison for 5yrs...i do not want my son around this man becuase of his abscence and the people he is around (known drug users and other legal stuff) i want my son to have my last name and now i am told that his father has to sign this paper to change it and agree to it but why should he have to if he has not been there for almost three years....can someone help!

Unfortunately, he will have to sign something in order for you to change your son's last name. Once he is on the birth certificate and is the "legal" father then in order to make a change of that sort, you would have to go to court and petition for a name change. He would then have to come to court and either sign the papers or could fight you tooth and nail on the issue. I know in my county in Illinois-all you have to do is file a petition for name change and run a LEGAL NOTICE in the newspaper. Then, unless he reads the legal notices and shows up-you can do it. I would check the procedures with your local circuit court's office, as each state and county are different. AS far as terminating his rights, this can be simple-IF he is willing to terminate his rights (all he has to do is sign a paper). You can not terminate his rights WITHOUT his signature in ANY state. It could be tricky if he is NOT willing to terminate-that could cause you much stress and financially could be costly.

My son's father recently left. We live in Illinois and I receive public aid. I called them the other day to get the case started and they said he won't get a court date for a few months. The problem with this is he is going ot be moving to new york soon. He is giving me no forwardig address or any information to find him so I can receive child support. I went the other day to the court house to take him into court and everyone is giving me the run around. My question is, is there anything that I can do to find him, ghow do I go about getting child support? And, how long can it take

Yours is a bad situation, but I am not sure it is bad enough to get his parental rights terminated. If he had been in jail, or the charges were current, you may have more luck with involuntary termination. On a practical note, since it is not so bad that a court can look at it and see there is no way this manshould be near a kid, he would have to sign away his parental rights. You can take him to court, and notice would have to be given, but at this point it may be best to just get sole custody and a no contact order, then if he messes up bad again, seek termination of parental rights. It is your choice. I suggest going to a free consultation with local counsel to see how they feel an involuntary termination action may play in your local courts. This is the sort of thing where knowledge of local courts and how they are likely to react is important.