The procedure for the voluntary termination of parental rights for the purpose of adoption or, if a suitable adoption plan cannot be effected, for the purpose of providing for the care of the child by some other plan which may or may not contemplate the continued possibility of eventual adoption, may be initiated whenever it appears that the parent or parents of any child desires to relinquish such parental rights.
S.D. Codified Laws § 25-5A-2
Purposes of termination procedure
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case In re the Termination of Parental Rights Over M.A.C. (1994)
Most recently applied in Interest of I.A.D., L.J.D., and C.M.D. (July 2023)
Source: SL 1971, ch 165, § 3; SL 1973, ch 163, § 2.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.