Blog host note: Having two Montana students in my Family Law course this spring semester has been extremely helpful for me to learn more about that state's views on families and their interactions with the law. As the last post considered issues surrounding the value of life in Montana, this post considers Montana's public policies on marriage. Both students, as you will read, have shown that a Christian attorney can make a tremendous difference in his or her state to help to bring about stronger families. That's what a legal education at Regent is all about.       ..read more

  This guest post is from Alexis Maddy, Regent Law Family Law student: Many states' laws surrounding abortion were drastically affected by the Dobbs decision. As a result, more pro-life-friendly laws were passed than ever before. Unfortunately, Montana was not one of those states. Armstrong v. State (1999) was the landmark decision that governs abortion laws in Montana today. There, the court held that the Montana Constitution's right of privacy "guarantees each individual the right to make medical judgments affecting her or his bodily integrity and health in partnership with a chosen h ..read more

                    This guest post is from Regent Law student Daniella LaRosa: The idea of splitting up a family with a divorce or separation is unhappily too common in this era. The sad and daunting thought is often, what will happen to the kids? Usually, a significant custody battle ends with the mother having sole or primary custody, and the father having visitation. There are situations where this is appropriate and in the child's best interest, as posted and discussed earlier in this blog. The law requires, howe ..read more

  On March 26th the Supreme Court of the United States will take up the issue of abortion pills and the risk they pose to women.  Available since 2000, with no clinical trials whatsoever, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and, more recently, the Biden Administration, have loosened access to these abortion pills over the years in ways that do not protect women, but rather harm us in reckless ways.   Originally, abortion pills (mifepristone which inhibits implantation and stops embryo growth, and misoprostol which causes cramping and bleeding to evacuate the uterus) could ..read more

                      This post is courtesy of Regent Law Family Law student Caleb Ridings: The debate over regulation of pornography has entered a new stage, demarcated by the sudden popularity of age verification statutes. Beginning with Louisiana in 2022, state legislatures have begun to seriously address the problem of children’s access to internet pornography. Currently eight states have enacted laws requiring users to verify their age to access adult websites. Dozens of other states are working on similar l ..read more

  Minnesota’s legislature is introducing a robust Uniform Parent Act, or UPA this week that will be focused on surrogacy rights and duties in that state. In training my law students in this area of law I tend to focus on three principles that seem to be important guides for both policy, and client surrogacy or in vitro fertilization (IVF) decisions:       1. State policy and legal guidance should help every client take personal responsibility for the children they conceive/create.  This intention helps to limit the options of destruction of or research on embryos, and causes s ..read more

               “A child born to another woman calls me momma; the depth of that tragedy and the magnitude of that privilege are not lost on me.”                                                                                        &nb ..read more

    This is reposted from The Virginia Family Foundation's President, Victoria Cobb:Tuesday, March 12, 2024 Sadly, last week Governor Youngkin signed HB 174 (D-Henson) into law, which establishes for the first time in our state Code the formal recognition and enforcement of so-called “same-sex marriage.”  Aside from the obvious and numerous worldview implications of redefining the bedrock institution of marriage in law, HB 174 will jeopardize conscience and religious protections for those who officiate weddings, and it further embeds th ..read more

HOMEPODCASTABOUT USWRITERSTIPSDONATE NEWS ABORTIONBORDER CRISISISRAELPARENTAL RIGHTSGOOD NEWS COMMENTARY in the Washington Stand: Pro-Life Women Physicians  Show a Path Forward for Life In honor of women everywhere, Regent Professor Dr. Robert Schwarzwalder has published a tribute to the female medical professionals of recent history who stood staunchly opposed to abortion. Read it at: Pro-Life Women Physicians Show a Path Forward for Life (washingtonstand.com).  To learn more about women standing against abortion download: The Rise and Fall of Women’s Rights: Have Sexual ..read more

  This guest post is from Anne Darby Keating, Regent Law 2L:     Modern-day foster care is often split into two categories: traditional foster care and kinship care. Kinship care is where relatives of the foster child take the child in rather than the child becoming a ward of the state and living with an unknown foster family. In South Carolina “kin” to the child could be a relative or a family friend or a neighbor (known as “fictive kin”) (S.C. Code Ann. § 63-7-2320). In the past, kinship caregivers could not receive state funding that traditional foster parents could be ..read more