My daughter's father is in prison and has been for almost 18 months, and I was wondering if since he was in prison would that be child abandonment?

Child Abandonment is a legal term to describe a parent's failure to provide any financial assistance to or communicate with his or her child over a period. When this happens, a court may deem the child abandoned by that parent and order that person's parental rights terminated. Since your child's Father is in prison, that may not be considered abandonment.

Did he have any contact with his child before being incarcerated? Does he try to maintain contact now? Would it bother him if his rights were terminated? Have you talked to him about this? He does have rights as the Father. Before you try and terminate his rights, best to find out if this really matters to him. If he is willing then you should have no problems. You need to know, however, that even if he does terminate his parental rights, he will still be responsible for child support. That will only cease if and when you marry and your husband wants to adopt the child.

You do need to get in contact with an attorney. Ask the professional. I think you left out a few things here.

You can read through the following articles on abandonment:
Understanding and Supporting Foster Children With Incarcerated Parents (http://ssw.unc.edu/fcrp/Cspn/vol7_no1/support_children_incarparents.htm)
http://ssw.unc.edu/fcrp/Cspn/vol7_no1/cspn%20vol6_1.pdf

My daughter's father is in prison and has been for almost 18 months, and I was wondering if since he was in prison would that be child abandonment?
Nope! His circumstances will allow him to be excused by the courts.

I read on a site online that if he is incarcerated it cannot be considered child abandonment