In the months after a West Virginia court permanently took away their right to parent their daughters this past April, Jackie Snodgrass and her husband were left in a quiet house. The kids’ rooms remained untouched. The court had denied a final visit — despite the children continually saying they missed their mother — so the parents never got to say goodbye to them in person. Snodgrass worried about them constantly, especially her older daughter, who has diabetes. “What if something happens to her?” Snodgrass said. “And if it does, I’m not going to be allowed to be there.” Once considered a last resort reserved for parents who abandon their children, the involuntary and permanent termination of parental rights now hangs over every mother and father accused of any form of abuse or neglect — including allegations of nonviolent behavior like drug use or truancy, the two central parenting issues in the Snodgrasses’ case. One in 50 children in West Virginia experienced the severing of their relationships with both of their parents from 2015 to 2019, the last full year of federal child welfare data available before the pandemic, according to a @propublica and @nbcnews analysis. Known in the legal world as the “death penalty” of child welfare, it can happen in a matter of months. Read the full story at the link in our bio. 📷 stephaniemeiling / @nbcnewsart / @propublica