In family law, deserting a child or leaving the child without effective supervision and provision for basic needs for too long a time. The age of the child, nature of the supervision (or lack of it), and the length of the unsupervised period all affect legal judgment as to whether abandonment has occurred, and state laws vary on these matters. But if a parent or parents are found to have abandoned a child, suit may be brought to terminate parents’ rights, after which the child may be adopted without parental permission. Stepparents or foster parents who wish to adopt a child but cannot locate the biological parents for permission sometimes initiate abandonment proceedings. If a child, especially an infant, is physically abandoned, as on a doorstep or in a garbage can, the parent can be liable to criminal prosecution. Such abandonment was once, and in some cultures still is, a common form of infanticide.
A tort in which the wrongdoing consists of leaving a patient without treatment when there is still a doctor-patient relationship requiring the physician to continue treatment.
A premature termination of the professional treatment relation ship by the health care provider without adequate notice or the patient’s consent.