Visitation rights of biological relatives.
Full Question:
Answer:
The effect of the final decree of adoption is to "terminate all legal relationships between the adopted individual and his natural relatives, including his natural parents, so that the adopted individual thereafter is a stranger to his former relatives for all purposes"; when a natural parent consents to the adoption of a child by another person, the consenting parent's relatives lose their legal rights to visitation because such rights are derivative of the consenting parent's rights and likewise are terminated when parental rights are ended. Ark. Code Ann. § 9-9-215(a)(1) (Supp. 1995).
Public policy favors a complete severance of the relationship between the adopted child and its biological family in order to further the best interest of the child. Suster v. Arkansas Dep't of Human Services, 314 Ark. 92, 858 S.W.2d 122 (1993).
