She can't legaly take kids away from him, he has right to demand 50% custody. In cases where she allege violence, it can be pretty difficult to make courts believe that and approve zero contact.
The state almost always awards primary custody to the wife/mother. There's a deep bias for mothers to raise children in the legal system.
Even great father's are looked at as deadbeats in these systems. It's one area I hope the law progesses in in the future.
Depends on the state, and not every state is as progressive as one might expect.
Or said another way - even if he has the legal right, that doesn't mean he necessarily has the budget to fight it. Unfortunately, I found that Might Makes Right is a real thing in family law.
We passed laws pertaining to homosexual marriage a while ago here in WA and had "domestic partnership" laws before that. I have asked many lawyers since then how the courts would view a divorce situation between two men or two women as in light of these laws that continue to give favor to a "mom". I've yet to get a straight answer, yet somehow the courts are presumably processing divorces for marriages of all types.
That means five of every six are mothers (83.3 percent)
Seems bias to me.
[1] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...