Rethinking Visitation: From a Parental to a Relational Right

I. INTRODUCTION Visitation with children has been in the public and legal limelight for several decades. Despite the enormous interest evoked by this issue and the extensive concern with this right, confusion and dissatisfaction with existing legal rules surrounding visitation has only intensified. This article argues that the perplexity surrounding this issue reflects the absence of an underlying theory of visitation that would specify the interests and values that a right to visitation should aim to protect. It is further argued that the current perception of visitation rights as parental rights and the attempts to resolve the dilemmas prompted by visitation within a parental rights context thwart the development of a theory of visitation. The article proposes an alternative perspective on these dilemmas that challenges the fundamental premise of visitation as a parental right and as an integral component of the rights cluster associated with parental status. Instead, it is suggested to understand the right to visitation as independent of the cluster of rights associated with parental status and based on relational values.