2025/07/17 by Sturtevant, Daniel Joseph
#Arts and Humanities #Constitutional Law #Developmental Psychology #Ethics and Political Philosophy #FOS: Law #FOS: Philosophy #FOS: Psychology #Family Law #Jurisprudence #Law #Law and Philosophy #Natural Law #Philosophy #Psychology #Public Affairs #Public Policy and Public Administration #Social Policy #Social and Behavioral Sciences #Theory and Philosophy #constitutional rights #ethics and religion #liberal democracy #safetyism #systems thoery
paper · doi:10.17605/osf.io/6udq4
This registration archives a completed legal-philosophical manuscript that indicts the discretionary regime governing American family law. It argues that family courts routinely delegate constitutional decision-making to unelected clinicians and evaluators operating without standards, accountability, or rights-based boundaries. The paper proposes a concrete remedy: that the U.S. Supreme Court formally recognize a fit parent's constitutional right to a developmentally rich relationship with their child — and the child’s reciprocal right to both fit parents — as protected under the 14th Amendment. It defines a constitutional floor beneath which no state or institutional actor may intrude, absent due process and narrowly tailored findings of harm. This work complements and builds upon the companion paper, The Best Interest of the Child: The Real Definition, also registered on OSF.