The One And Only Phyllis Dixey (1978) Download __TOP__
Julieta Bassette
The right to family integrity is derived both from the First Amendment's broad right of association and the Fourteenth Amendment's general substantive due process protections. See Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 617-20, 104 S. Ct. 3244, 3249-50, 82 L. Ed. 2d 462 (1984); Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 102 S. Ct. 1388, 1394, 71 L. Ed. 2d 599 (1982); Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246, 255, 98 S. Ct. 549, 554, 54 L. Ed. 2d 511 (1978); Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 97 S. Ct. 1932, 52 L. Ed. 2d 531 (1977). The Ninth Amendment also has been cited as a source of a right to privacy. See Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651, 92 S. Ct. 1208, 1212, 31 L. Ed. 2d 551 (1972) (citing Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 496, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 1688, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 (1965) (Goldberg, J., concurring)). Although the Supreme Court has held the parent-child relationship to be constitutionally protected, courts nevertheless have been loathe to impose a constitutional obligation on the state to ensure a particular type of family life or to create such an obligation "through the penumbral constitutional ... right to familial privacy." B.H., 715 F. Supp. 1387, 1397 (N.D.Ill.1989); see also Child v. Beame, 412 F. Supp. 593, 603 (S.D.N.Y.1976) (holding that plaintiffs could not extrapolate from right to non-interference in private life a right to governmental intervention in form of permanent adoptive placement). In fact, the only courts to apply the concept of family integrity to the child welfare context have done so when children in foster care were denied visitation with siblings and parents. See Aristotle P. v. Johnson, 721 F. Supp. 1002 (N.D.Ill.1989); R.C. ex rel. Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Project v. Hornsby, No. 88-D-1170-N, slip op. at 10-12 (M.D.Ala. Apr. 19, 1989).