a parent has a duty to support his or her l Assembly have taken several steps to ensure that non-supporting parents honor their obligations. For example, the State Constitution provides that a person may be imprisoned for nonpayment of child or spousal support obligations. See Md. Const, art. Ill, § 38 (stating that “[n]o person shall be imprisoned for a debt, but a valid decree of a court of competent jurisdiction or agreement approved by decree of said court for the support of a spouse or dependent children, or for alimony ... shall not constitute a debt within the meaning of this section.”); Md. Rule 15-207(e) (providing procedures for imprisonment upon non-payment of child or spousal support obligation); Middleton v. Middleton, 329 Md. 627, 639, 620 A.2d 1363, 1369 (1993) (<HOLDING>). The General Assembly authorized the Child
holding that parents may not voluntarily terminate their rights in a child to avoid child support payments or contract away a child support obligation holding that an outofwedlock childs pending claim for retroactive child support was nondischargeable in bankruptcy because a debt for child support arises upon the birth of the child and that the fact that no court had yet ordered the debtor to support the child does not take the debt outside the scope of 11 usc  523a5 holding that since a parents child support obligation is not a debt within the prohibition of  38 the obligation of the defaulting parent may be enforced by means of the courts contempt power including imprisonment pending the purging of the default holding that effect of discharge of debt under bankruptcy code is the same as it was under the 1898 bankruptcy act it is not an extinguishment of the debt but only a bar to enforcement of the debt as a personal obligation of the debt or holding that the trial court had not erred in including the cost of health insurance covering both the custodial parent and the parties child in determining the noncustodial parents childsupport obligation