Background
A.C. is a child born in June 2024 whose umbilical cord tested positive for cocaine and THC at birth. After a brief return home under a safety plan, the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services initiated child-in-need-of-assistance proceedings in September 2024 when the father refused drug testing and the mother violated the safety plan. The juvenile court ordered the child removed from the parents’ custody, and the parents stipulated to a CINA adjudication the following month. The child was eventually placed with his maternal great aunt in January 2025, where he has remained along with two older half-siblings.
Following a February 2026 termination hearing, the evidence showed the father had continuing, serious substance-abuse problems throughout the case. He tested positive for cocaine twice in January 2026—the month before the hearing—and admitted to using fentanyl “on occasion” throughout the proceedings. He had also asked to delay drug testing because he had been “handling” drugs. Although the father had completed inpatient treatment and was engaged in outpatient care at the time of the hearing, he remained on fully supervised visitation due to his recent positive drug screens.
The juvenile court terminated the father’s parental rights under Iowa Code section 232.116(1), paragraphs “d,” “h,” and “i.” The father appealed on a single issue: that the permissive parent-child-bond exception under Iowa Code section 232.116(3)(c) should have precluded termination. Evidence at the hearing established that the father was consistent in his visits and shared a close, affectionate bond with the child, who would run to him and call him “Da Da.”
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the termination order, unanimously holding that the father failed to meet his burden to establish the parent-child-bond exception under Iowa Code section 232.116(3)(c). Writing for a panel of Judges Greer, Buller, and Langholz, Judge Langholz conducted a de novo review and concluded that while the father’s love for the child and the child’s bond with the father were genuine, those facts alone are insufficient to establish the exception under controlling Iowa precedent.
The court emphasized that the dispositive question under the exception is not whether a bond exists, but whether the child will be disadvantaged by termination and whether that disadvantage overcomes the parent’s inability to provide for the child’s developing needs. On that standard, the father fell short: the child had spent virtually his entire life in out-of-home placements, was thriving in his current placement with a potential adoptive caregiver, and the father had not progressed past supervised visitation or resolved his substance-abuse issues more than a year after removal.
The court declined to apply the exception and reaffirmed that a child cannot be deprived of permanency merely on the hope that a parent will someday achieve stability, quoting In re A.M., 843 N.W.2d 100, 112 (Iowa 2014).
Key Takeaways
- Under Iowa Code § 232.116(3)(c), a genuine parent-child bond and a parent’s love for a child are not sufficient, standing alone, to invoke the permissive exception to termination; the parent must show the child would be disadvantaged by termination in a way that overcomes the parent’s inability to meet the child’s needs.
- Continued substance abuse, failure to progress beyond supervised visitation, and a child’s successful placement in a stable, potentially adoptive home collectively weigh heavily against application of the bond exception.
- Iowa courts will not delay permanency for a young child based on a parent’s in-progress treatment when statutory grounds for termination have been proven and the child has already spent most of his life in out-of-home care.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the high bar Iowa courts apply to the parent-child-bond exception and clarifies that the exception’s focus is the child’s prospective disadvantage—not the parent’s emotional connection. Practitioners representing parents in termination proceedings should understand that demonstrating a loving relationship and consistent visitation, without also demonstrating resolution of the underlying safety concerns, will rarely carry the day under section 232.116(3)(c).
For child welfare practitioners and courts, the case underscores the weight Iowa appellate courts place on a child’s need for permanency when a parent has failed to achieve stability within the statutory timeframe—particularly where, as here, the child has a willing, capable relative caregiver ready to provide an adoptive home.