Family Law and Emotional Rights 215Other researchers suggest defining the child's Best Interest standard more clearly
and consistently (Oppenheim & Bussiere, 1996). The ambiguity of the Best Interest
standard allows for the court to be flexible and meet the needs of each individual
child; however, it does not protect children against the biases and prejudices of
judges. To reduce the ambiguity, Oppenheim and Bussiere suggest the importance
of blood relationships on children's well-being be assessed and coherent laws based
on the findings be enacted. In order to establish coherent laws, several questions
such as "how much weight should be given to blood relationships in determining
custody" and "under what circumstances should relatives be able to maintain a
relationship with their kin following an adoption by a non-relative?" (pp. 480-
481), need to be considered. Not only do Oppenheim and Bussiere address specific
questions that must be answered prior to policy change, they provide guidelines
with which each question should be answered. The researchers argue that the child's
best interests should be considered more important than the interests of the adult
parties, the court should protect the continuity of personal relationships, and the
court should respect the importance of the child's relationships with the extended
biological family that will encourage connections to family history and culture. If
Oppenheim and Bussiere's policy recommendations had been accepted prior to the
Baby Jessica case, the judge may have ruled that she remain in the Deboer s home
and receive regular visits from her biological parents; it is difficult to determine the
effects such a ruling would have had on the child.
Family law experts are proposing measures which could help protect children
from the negative emotional impact that results from unsatisfactory family law
(Cowley ct al., 1993). In an effort to prevent adoption custody disputes, some ac-
tivists have proposed to make adoptions closed, despite research indicating that
positive ties to biological family can be beneficial for adoptees (Bracco, 1997;
Oppenheim & Bussiere, 1996). An open adoption could have prevented the Baby
Jessica custody dispute completely. Perhaps if the biological mother was granted
regular visits with her daughter, she may not have felt as if she were missing out
on her daughter's life. Bracco (1997) suggests that the law redefines what is consid-
ered family. She argues that adoption law is based on patriarchal child development
theories and the current perception of the nuclear family may be too rigid. Bracco
argues that policy changes in Canada should be made in which an adopted child's
biological parents can have a role in raising the child. Although Bracco's arguments
are primarily for adoption considerations and not necessarily custody disputes, her
argument for redefining familial considerations relates to policy suggestions made
by other researchers. Wynne (1997) suggests that courts work to redefine what are
considered "real" family relationships. He argues that children's emotional needs
will not be met until courts define family according to a psychological definition.
This definition would place more emphasis on psychological ties with parents rather
than on blood ties.
The analysis of policies concerning custodial disputes between biological parents
and third parties is difficult because the policies concerning custody are confounded