Cases like these would be the hardest for me personally.
The Court of Appeal seems to be convinced that the toddler here -- Andrew M. -- would be better off with his foster (to-be-adoptive) parents rather than his biological parents. They accordingly conclude that the trial court's finding to the contrary was an abuse of discretion and end the opinion by saying that parental rights to the child should be terminated unless there's something new that's extremely material.
I'm not nearly as confident.
The parents here seem clearly to love their child. They visit the child all the time when they're allowed to do so. The child definitely likes hanging out with them (again, when he's allowed to do so). There's lots to be said in the parents' favor, and there's none of the wholesale abuse or abandonment that you (sadly) see in so many of these cases.
Are the parents perfect? Of course not. They seem dramatically disinterested in taking drug tests, and on some (not-radically-often) occasions miss or are late for visits. Moreover, the would-be adoptive parents seem clearly wonderful.
The Court of Appeal seems strongly influenced by the fact that the toddler doesn't scream or make a fit when the visits with his biological parents end -- Justice O'Leary emphasizes that fact in several places in the opinion. But it seems harsh to make that the overarching principal of who gets a child. Maybe the child is just incredibly good natured. Were I the biological parent, I would very much hate to have my child's generally pleasant disposition used as a factor -- much less a major one -- in whether I'm allowed any future parental contact with him.
In the end, this seems to me one of those cases that's exceedingly close. Either set of parents might well turn out fine (or, perhaps, not so fine). It's incredibly hard to judge -- at least for me. Particularly on a paper appellate record, without ever meeting the child or the biological parents. Which is why we have abuse of discretion as the relevant standard, of course. But the Court of Appeal here seems very certain that the biological parents wouldn't be sufficient. I'd have a much harder time making that same call.
Which is not to say that Justice O'Leary might not be right. She might well be. I just simply don't know.
