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Thursday, March 15, 2012

Ind. Law - Grandparents visitation rights, revisited

Reporter Tim Evans writes in the StarWatch blog today about a meeting he attended yesterday "in a small town about 100 miles from Indianapolis ... [in] a basement room at the local Elks lodge." A sample:

Seated around a long table in the basement were about a dozen broken-hearted grandparents. Their dreams of idyllic relationships with beloved grandchildren had been snuffed by the ravages of drugs, alcohol and domestic violence. Their sense of justice and faith in government has been eroded by court decisions that make no sense to them, by laws that severely limit grandparents’ rights, and by a child protection system they are convinced is letting down their defenseless grandchildren. * * *

The horrors they detailed were amazing. Domestic violence spanning generations. Child rape. Neglect and abuse perpetrated by parents more interested in getting high than caring for their kids. Courts they believe give too little sway to the concerns of grandparents who, in many cases, have essentially raised the children. A child protection system they feel too often discounts their concerns. Children who have turned on their own parents, using grandchildren as pawns.

ILB: The General Assembly looked at the difficult issue of grandparent visitation in 2010. Here are some posts, with links to others:This year, a case on grandparents' rights came before the SCOTUS:

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 15, 2012 01:20 PM
Posted to Indiana Law