A proposed legal option, not an existing one: the ability of a biological father to relinquish parental rights and support obligations before birth. No US jurisdiction provides it.

Where the phrase comes from, what it does and does not refer to, and why several different names circulate for the same proposal.

In the United States, no. Here is what courts have actually held, the narrow situations where an obligation genuinely ends, and why the reasoning turns on the child rather than the parents.

The four questions people are actually arguing about, what each side claims, and which parts have settled legal answers and which remain genuinely open.