I do think if your visits are taken away, that doesn't seem right as grounds for termination or can be really called abandonment.
I agree that at first blush the decision seems unfair, but the decision included a paragraph (see below) that talked about how the parents were given instructions on what they needed to do to have visits reinstated -- they did none of those things. So the abandonment occurred not so much by their lack of visits, but their lack of working to get visits reinstated.
Or that's how I interpreted it. ;)
{ 19} Second, although the trial court granted the motion to suspend visitation, it did not do so arbitrarily. It was the parents' voluntary action in failing to consistently visit with the children, along with their failure to begin making any progress on the case plan, which led to the suspension of visitation. Moreover, both caseworkers testified that they had conversations with the parents regarding the steps the parents needed to take in order to resume visitations, beginning with working on the case plan requirements. Yet, neither parent began working on the requirements of the case plan. Under these facts, the trial court did not err in determining that the children were abandoned.
