86
Stevens, J., dissenting
order visitation continued over a parent's objections—finds no support in this Court's case law. While, as the Court recognizes, the Federal Constitution certainly protects the parent-child relationship from arbitrary impairment by the State, see infra this page and 87-88, we have never held that the parent's liberty interest in this relationship is so inflexible as to establish a rigid constitutional shield, protecting every arbitrary parental decision from any challenge absent a threshold finding of harm.7 The presumption that parental decisions generally serve the best interests of their children is sound, and clearly in the normal case the parent's interest is paramount. But even a fit parent is capable of treating a child like a mere possession.
Cases like this do not present a bipolar struggle between the parents and the State over who has final authority to determine what is in a child's best interests. There is at a minimum a third individual, whose interests are implicated in every case to which the statute applies—the child.
It has become standard practice in our substantive due process jurisprudence to begin our analysis with an identification of the "fundamental" liberty interests implicated by the challenged state action. See, e. g., ante, at 65-66 (opinion of O'Connor, J.); Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702 (1997); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). My colleagues are of course correct to recognize that the right of a parent to maintain a relationship with his or her child is among the interests in-7 The suggestion by Justice Thomas that this case may be resolved solely with reference to our decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535 (1925), is unpersuasive. Pierce involved a parent's choice whether to send a child to public or private school. While that case is a source of broad language about the scope of parents' due process rights with respect to their children, the constitutional principles and interests involved in the schooling context do not necessarily have parallel implications in this family law visitation context, in which multiple overlapping and competing prerogatives of various plausibly interested parties are at stake.
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