Troxel and the rhetoric of associational respect

Abstract

A recent decision by the United States Supreme Court has brought into sharp focus important questions about the nature and extent of parents' prerogatives to dictate how their children are raised. In the case of Troxel v. Granville, the Court addressed a Washington third-party visitation statute that permitted "any person" to petition for visitation with a child. Under the statute, a petitioner had to allege that visitation would serve the child's best interest. A judge hearing such a petition could order visitation whenever he or she found that such visitation may serve the child's best interest. The United States Supreme Court's consideration of the Washington statute resulted in a splintered array of opinions that call for a serious and full public discussion of third-party visitation statutes. Justice Scalia's opinion opens the door to such a discussion by moving the issues away from constitutional rights rhetoric that only leads to confusion and stalemate in discussions of family policies and issues. He wisely calls for the public discussion and debate to begin. The participants in this public discussion would be well served by a deep and probing consideration of the family's political functions within a large pluralistic democracy.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-02-10

Downloads
4 (#1,426,706)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references