Announcing: The State of Parental Rights in America 2026

Today, it is my honor and privilege to announce the first-of-its-kind Parental Rights Foundation publication, The State of Parental Rights in America 2026 (SOPRA-26), featuring scholars and lived-experience experts from the Parental Rights Foundation’s Board of Advisors.

The publication strives to take a snapshot of where we are in our defense of parental rights (and the families they protect) right here at the start of 2026.

The journal features a few data points to help us track progress year by year, from the number of children in foster care to the list of states with parental rights statutes. 

But its true strength is in the articles, which take on the issues and highlight the cases that are of greatest importance right now.

Columbia University professor Josh Gupta-Kagan takes on the issue of “Hidden Foster Care,” or out-of-home placements that are supposed to be voluntary (but often aren’t) in the interest of avoiding foster care.

Martin Guggenheim, NYU professor of law emeritus, writes about the hypocrisy of a child welfare system that claims to seek the best for children, while persisting in practices we all know to be detrimental.

And lived-experience advocate (and activist powerhouse!) Joyce McMillan highlights legislation in New York that offers a rare and welcome step forward in protecting families from anonymous hotline calls.

These three represent the Parental Rights Foundation’s Board of Advisors Committee on Child Welfare. They are joined by three additional scholars from the Committee on the Constitution.

Constitutional lawyer Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and the Parental Rights Foundation, rejoices in the Supreme Court’s overturning of a case he himself argued decades ago—one that never sat well with him.

Melissa Moschella, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, offers a Catholic perspective on the importance of the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, probably the most important parental rights case in a quarter century (and, incidentally, the same case Michael Farris celebrates in his article).

And Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Emilie Kao tackles the “mature minor doctrine,” opining that it may be time to end this notion in state and federal law. In light of existing Supreme Court precedent, it is certainly a discussion whose time has come.

When we first launched the Foundation in 2014, our mission was to provide research with which to educate policymakers, lawmakers, and the general public on the important matters of parental rights. In the years since, we have also found it important for these conversations to take place across the political aisle. With this publication, we lean into both.

I dare say many readers will find something in SOPRA-26 that they disagree with. But you will find much more that you can cheer on and support. That’s the beauty of working together across the aisle: it drives us to always “keep the main thing the main thing.”

We come from all walks and from many different places on the political spectrum. But we stand united in this: that parents, not government bureaucrats, are in the best position to make the decisions for children, leading them to become their very best selves.

I hope you will enjoy reading SOPRA-26 as much as we enjoyed putting it together. I am deeply indebted to our entire Board of Advisors, especially these six who authored papers for this inaugural publication. (Hopefully other members can add their voices to the next edition, too!)

Protecting children by empowering parents. It’s the Foundation’s motto, and the theme of the State of Parental Rights in America 2026. I hope you’ll download and enjoy your copy today—and share it with those who need to hear these voices!

P.S. — If you like what you read, consider investing in the Parental Rights Foundation so we can get SOPRA-26 into the hands of lawmakers and policymakers who most need to consider what our scholars have to say. Together we can shape the conversations, and in so doing reshape the world.