Excerpt from Grandparent's Visitation Rights: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-Eighth Congress, First Session on S. Con, Res, 40 November 15, 1983<br><br>The latter question is a serious question. The states face an enormous, nearly unwinnable struggle with domestic relations adjudications. I can think of no area of family law, whether it be dissolution of marriage, adoption, termination of parental rights, enforcement of support, guardianships, or child custody, in which things are going well. The courts struggle to cope with adjudications of all these kinds of actions. They are poorly equipped for the task, and the results are uniformly unsatisfactory. Should we be adding new access to these courts when they do not do well what they are doing now? At some point in the United States, policy makers are going to have to realize that all issues are not legal issues and that some things must remain outside the circle of those things legally enforceable. The adjudication of so-called grandparents' rights may or may not fall within the magic circle, but the question is one that must be asked in considering a Uniform Act.<br><br>The parent-child relationship has remained pretty well unassailable American jurisprudence. Courts_ and legislatures have not readily entertained the abrogation of the parent-child relationship, recognizing its fundamental character. It is a complicated relationship involving both rights and obligations. Visitation rights for grandparents are an abrogation of the parent-child relationship. The existence of such rights means a diminution of parental authority, however slight. A diminution of parental authority cannot be taken lightly, given the strains on family relationships that already exist. No legal relationship is wholly sacred, but very good reasons must be found for changing the parent-child relationship before a Uniform Act should be entertained.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.