Should
have
, dammit!
HAVE!
<sigh> It would appear the Republican plan to destroy our educational system and create an army of zombies stupid enough to vote for Trump is succeeding.
There are 8.2 billion people in the world. 8.19 billion of them have never heard of and don't give a fuck about Charlie Kirk. Get over it.

In the book the sister dies. Maybe they should of had the sister die, instead of being saved, but in the end the sister did let her adopt Cody.
Dad wants us to start where he left off. Saving people,Hunting things,the family business.

Even if the sister was the adopted parent. The best she could do would be to take him to court which would drag on for months. As for the kidnapping, say the sister was legal guardian, the police would still have to find them in order to save the girl. He had all kinds of lookouts at his home who would have warned him, and like the cops said he moves around a lot and is hard to find.
The sacrifice was due in less then a week I think and the legal system would have been to slow anyway. I'm thinking the adaption wasn't an issue til the mother turned up.

Ok so the sister just abandons her daughter with her sister for 6 yrs. and then comes back out of the blue and takes herright.
Wrong. She was kidnapped.
What I didn't understand is why didn't the girls aunt file for adoption yrs. ago?
Legal guardianship was already assumed with Cody's abandonment and just expected her sister to either never return or died anonymously from a drug addiction.
Passenger side, lighting the sky
Always the first star that I find
You're my satellite

"In Michigan, the parent needs to sign off ALL parental rights & responsibilities in order for the child to be adopted. I'm not sure what other states require, but it's probably pretty similar. So since Jenna didn't relinquish her parental rights, Maggie could not legally adopt Codyeven though she had been left in her care."
That's not entirely true. Adoption does not require parental consent in cases of abandonment.
Yes, in most instances, under just about every state law, parents must voluntarily sign away their rights for a child to be legally adopted, but in every state, child abandonment is considered voluntary surrender of parental rights once a certain amount of time has passed with no sign or word from the parent.
If you just leave your child and make no effort to contact the child or the child's care taker again, that is legally the same thing as signing away your rights. It's like property, when you just abandon something and make no effort to go back for it, there is a point at which you lose rights of ownership to it, because you've pretty much indicated you don't want it anymore. It's the same thing with children, the law doesn't give you the right to just abandon your child, come back years later, and say, "I'm taking my kid back,".
Parental rights can also be terminated against the parents wishes if the parent has consistently shown to the courts to be unfit with no signs of effort from the parent to remedy the situation and it's determined adoption is in the child's best interests. Abuse, neglect, or abandonment would most definitely fit that criteria.
That's how children in foster care are released for adoption. So, yes Jenna did actually relinquish her rights by abandoning her daughter with no word for six years and Maggie could have taken steps to legally adopt her. Maggie would have had to take legally appropriate steps to contact Jenna, but once such steps were taken and a certain amount of time passed, Maggie absolutely would have been in a position to adopt Cody and should have done just that, or at least obtained some kind of legal guardianship. I agree with the OP that it made no sense why Maggie didn't do this.

Oh ok, thank you. I wasn't sure how it works sense she just abandoned her baby. I was thinking Maggie could just adapt after a certain amount of yrs. passed by without a word and she sure wasn't getting any form of child support.

In Michigan, the parent needs to sign off ALL parental rights & responsibilities in order for the child to be adopted. I'm not sure what other states require, but it's probably pretty similar. So since Jenna didn't relinquish her parental rights, Maggie could not legally adopt Codyeven though she had been left in her care. It's been a while since I've watched the movie, so I don't remember if Maggie made any attempts to find Jenna before Cheri showed up or not. If she Had, & it was on record (Police, PI, etc), then she might have been able to file for Guardianship (not the same as adopting). In my opinion, Maggie Never expected her to come back (even though she hoped for it), so she decided to not press the Guardianship issue & therefore not rock the boat.

Wow thanks for the insightful reply

Im hooked on heroin