This study aims to shed light on the meaning of parental ability and lack of care in LVU-verdicts concerning women who have returned from IS. The material consists of the judgements of the administrative courts and the results analyzes both the court´s assessments and the women´s opinons in order to make visable how parental ability and lack of care are constructed. Both theory and method are based on Laclau & Mouffe´s discourse theory.  The results show that the concepts of parental ability and lack of care are given meaning based on a special focus on women´s agency, which further shows how a security policy discourse is expressed in the judgements. Within this discourse, women´s own driving forces and ideological convictions are considered central to how parental ability and lack of care are constructed. Perceptions of women´s agency in terrorist organizations and in motherhood also fill the concepts with meaning based on normative constructions of gender.  Finally, the analysis shows how women´s subject positions are constructed according to the victim/perpetrator dichotomy - which further demonstrates how parental ability is assessed based on a special focus on agency within the framework of a security policy discourse.