## 1. Foundations



A parent is someone with weighty rights and responsibilities regarding
a given child. Parents usually have decision-making rights over most
areas of their child's life and rights to exclude others from
making such decisions. So long as parents fulfill requirements to
nourish, educate, and provide healthcare for their children, they may
make many decisions over how and what their child eats, dresses,
plays, studies, and with whom he or she interacts.
 Section 5
 surveys controversies regarding the content of these rights and
responsibilities.



"Parenthood" has distinct senses: biological, social,
legal, and moral. These categories present problems at the margins.
While the idea of a biological parent seems self-evident, modern
reproductive technology complicates it, as a child can have genetic
parents (gamete providers, who supply the sperm or egg) and a third,
gestational, parent. Each of these is a biological parent, by virtue
of making a biological contribution to producing the child. The recent
technology of mitochondrial replacement therapy, in which the nucleus
of a fertilized egg is transferred to a second egg for medical
reasons, introduces further complications, as additional genetic
material--mitochondrial DNA--is supplied by the donor egg
cell.



Biological parents are commonly distinguished from social parents, who
rear the child and are socially perceived as responsible for it.
Adoptive parents, or parents who rear children created with donated
gametes and gestated by a third party, are social, but not biological,
parents. (Biological parents need not be social parents, as biological
parents give up children for adoption, donate gametes, or work as
gestational parents.) The category of social parent presents
borderline cases when a given community does not socially recognize
those rearing a child as parents. This might occur with a
mother's unmarried partner, two friends rearing children
together, other relatives like grandparents rearing the child, or when
a community participates in child-rearing. Legal and moral criteria
for the acquisition of parental rights and responsibilities should
clearly designate whom society should recognize as having them.



Legal parenthood consists in possessing legal parental rights and
responsibilities. Historically, in the US, a pregnant woman's
husband has been presumed to be her child's legal father:
marriage, not biology, underpins the legal relation. This has faced
legal challenges from genetic fathers (Rosenman 1995; see Hubin 2003
on fatherhood). Law in different jurisdictions is also increasingly
recognizing legal parental rights on the basis of same-sex marriage.
The rise of ART has prompted many questions regarding assignment of
legal parenthood when there are contending claims--as between a
couple who commissioned a contract pregnancy and the contracting
gestational parent. They have also stretched the understanding of
parenthood, as when the Ontario Court of Appeal recognized three legal
parents (*A.A. v. B.B.*, 2007 ONCA 2)--a lesbian couple
and sperm donor. The wider use of ART and gamete donation, along with
broader recognition of same-sex marriage and changing social attitudes
towards polyamory, have led some philosophers to argue for rethinking
the family to include more than two social and legal parents, on
grounds including child welfare, social justice, and environmental
impact (see, e.g., Cutas 2011, Shrage 2018, Gheaus 2019, Grill
2020).



Legal, social, and biological parenthood can be conceptually
distinguished; however, parenthood is arguably fundamentally a moral
relationship, and its moral grounds and obligations should be
considered in resolving the borderline cases. Moral parenthood is
possession of moral parental rights and responsibilities. These may
differ in content from legal rights and responsibilities--we
might think parents morally ought to do more than they are legally
required to do, for example. The moral grounds for assigning parental
rights can also differ from their legal assignment. Of course, legal
assignment of parenthood may trigger moral obligations, due to a
general moral obligation to obey the law or because the legal parent
is best-placed to rear the child. But moral theories of parenthood
give independent grounds for parental rights, on the basis of which
particular legal arrangements may be criticized.



The interrelation of legal, moral, social, and biological parenthood
depends on the particular moral theory of how one becomes a parent.
For example, on a genetic account, biology determines moral parental
status, whereas on an intentional account, biology will be less
morally salient.
 Section 4
 reviews these theories.


## 2. Procreative Autonomy



20th-century international human rights documents
explicitly codify the right "to marry and found a family"
(United Nations 1948, Article 16), and thus some writers argue that
liberal constitutions implicitly enshrine a right to procreate (Hill
1991). A right to procreate could be construed negatively or
positively. As a negative right, it would be a right against coercive
interference in decisions regarding procreation. As a positive right,
it would be an entitlement to assistance in procreation.



This entry does not consider abortion. Although positions on
procreative autonomy are not independent of positions on abortion, the
extensive philosophical debate about abortion must be dealt with
independently. The issue of contraception can be touched on briefly
here. While some religious views oppose contraception, this position
is not widely defended in philosophical ethics. However, philosophical
debate has recently emerged over "conscientious
objections" by pharmacists. In some jurisdictions, pharmacists
opposing abortion have a legal right to refuse to dispense emergency
contraception, on the (medically controversial) basis that it acts as
an abortifacient. This right has been defended on the grounds that
pharmacists' freedom of conscience outweighs the inconvenience
to women (if they can obtain the drug elsewhere). Others have argued
that such refusals constitute serious harms to women, not mere
inconveniences, and that similar objections would not be permitted in
non-procreative cases, such as a vegetarian pharmacist who refused to
dispense materials tested on animals (LaFollette and LaFollette 2007;
Fenton and Lomasky 2005; McLeod 2010; Kelleher 2010; McLeod 2020).


### 2.1 Defenses of a right to procreate



A negative moral right to procreate--also discussed under the
label of "reproductive liberty" or "procreative
liberty"--may be grounded in autonomy rights to control
one's body and make certain important decisions for oneself
(Dworkin 1993). Violations could involve direct physical coercion such
as rape or forced abortion or sterilization, or coercive interference
with decisions regarding sexual activity or contraception. Involuntary
physical interventions such as forced contraception, sterilization, or
abortion were practiced in twentieth-century eugenic movements. Their
wrongness is now generally acknowledged, but critics see continuity
between such racist policies and contemporary moderately coercive
policies such as making contraceptive implants the condition of
medical aid for impoverished women, particularly for women of color
(see Roberts 1997).



A right to procreate may also be grounded in the strong interest
people have in creating a child, giving birth, and parenting
(Robertson 1994). Because this justification does not concern a right
to use one's body, but to realize the important interest in
creating and rearing a child, it can be taken to imply a positive (as
well as a negative) right to procreate. Such a positive right could
also entail a claim to sufficient environmental resources to raise
children justly (Gheaus 2016a; Roberts 2015) or to funding for ART
(Robertson 1994). Given that a distinct right to parent could be met
through adoption, some suggest that financial barriers to ART where
children are available for adoption would be justified (De Wispelaere
and Weinstock 2014). Others have criticized the way that focusing on a
right to procreate perpetuates the "biogenetic bias" that
favors genetic ties over social ones (Boucai 2016) or challenged the
idea that the value of establishing a parenting relationship can
ground a right to create someone with the special vulnerabilities of
children to their parents (Hannan and Leland 2018).



Liberal theory has tended to support some sort of right to procreative
autonomy. At its strongest, the "repro-libertarian"
approach opposes regulations on reproductive decisions and ART unless
they can be shown to threaten harm to others. Repro-libertarianism is
grounded in the values of individual equality and autonomy (Feinberg
1986; Dworkin 1993). The basic thought is that interfering in
procreation involves illiberal interference with the person and her
choices. Further, some authors hold that ART ought to be universally
available provided it does not harm others, because any restrictions
would constitute unequal treatment of those who cannot conceive
through sexual intercourse (whether due to infertility or because they
do not form a "traditional" family) (Harris 1998).



Repro-libertarians have been concerned to show that assumptions about
the inherent wrongness or harmfulness of ART are not justified. In
particular, they have argued that conservative opposition to cloning,
genetic selection, surrogacy, and harvesting fetal ovarian tissue is
based in undefended traditionalism (Harris 1998; cf. Glover 1998;
Buchanan et al. 2000, chap. 2).


### 2.2 Conservative perspectives on procreative autonomy



*Communitarian conservative* approaches to procreative liberty
tend to regard procreation as part of a dense web of practices that
gain their meaning and value from being part of a comprehensive way of
life. Efforts to increase procreative autonomy--particularly
through biotechnology--risk meddling with such ways of life
(Sandel 2007). Thus, communitarian conservatives view ART with
suspicion. The 20th-century record of Nazi
"eugenics" programs, forced abortion as a
population-control mechanism, and widespread nonconsensual
sterilization in many countries, including the United States, is
adduced as support for pessimism about technological, policy-driven,
or self-indulgent interventions in procreation (Meilaender 1987).



Communitarian conservatives typically oppose the use of ART. They also
criticize talk of rights in discussion of procreation and parent-child
relations. As Murray writes: "Procreative liberty's
problems began when it appropriated the abstract principle--the
right to choose--and ripped it out of the rich context that
provided its moral heft" (Murray 2002, 42).



Communitarian conservatives need not deny that persons have a strong
interest in autonomy regarding procreative decisions. The point is
that this interest is both generated and delimited by a particular
communal context. They believe there is no right to reproductive
autonomy, because reproductive choices gain their meaning and value
from this context.



Some philosophers argue for limiting the moral right to procreate to
married or long-term male-female couples on harm-based grounds (Almond
2006). Some claim that same-sex and single parenting harm children.
While the empirical debate cannot be addressed here, there seems to be
a lack of evidence that same-sex parenting harms children. For
example, an American Sociological Association review finds a
"clear consensus in the social science literature" that
children of same-sex parents are no worse off than children of
different-sex parents (see Manning et al., 2014). In any case, since
evidence suggests that high-conflict families or divorce can harm
children, such arguments risk inconsistency if not applied to
male-female couples at risk of divorce or sub-par parenting.


### 2.3 Feminist perspectives on procreative autonomy



Feminist perspectives on procreative autonomy are diverse, but they
share a commitment to opposing patriarchy and promoting people's
(particularly women's) abilities to determine the shape of their
own lives, where this includes sexual and reproductive autonomy. While
some feminists also take communitarian, repro-libertarian, or more
nuanced liberal perspectives, other feminists criticize those
approaches. One general theme of feminist criticism is that mainstream
procreative ethics often employs abstractions which obscure the impact
of policies on women's bodies, as well as the real-world context
of socio-economic pressures (e.g., Overall 2012). Much feminist work,
then, begins with women's embodied experience in pregnancy, as
caregivers, and as subject to distinct, gendered, social and economic
pressures (e.g., Mullin 2005; Satz 2010; Gheaus 2016b).



The feminist concern to enable women to control their own lives and
bodies suggests sympathy with the repro-libertarians' focus on
autonomy and equality. But many feminists are skeptical of the
reproductive biotechnology establishment, which remains preponderantly
white, upper-middle class, male, and corporate. Hence feminists have
charged that repro-libertarianism would exacerbate existing power
inequalities (Corea 1985; Sherwin 1987, 1992; Rothman 1989; Dodds and
Jones 1989a; Baron 2019). While this establishment represents itself
as empowering women, many feminists charge that it succeeds only in
disempowering them: it conscripts poorer women into service for people
who are usually wealthier; it creates new expectations that may subtly
coerce women to pursue fertility treatments or other medical
interventions; and it inevitably reflects the cultural, economic,
sexist, and racist biases of the society at large (Brazier 1998;
Roberts 1997).



Some feminists have also raised the concern that any putative right to
procreate threatens to give men power over women. In addition to
empowering the mostly male scientific establishment, a right to
procreate could empower a man to prevent his erstwhile partner from
aborting her pregnancy (Overall 1993). Thus the importance of a right
not to procreate has led many feminists to place the various strands
of procreative autonomy within a nexus of interests.



Critiques of the concept of procreative autonomy as misleading or
empty rhetoric reflect a larger feminist project critical of autonomy
construed as individual choice: within an inegalitarian social and
economic system, some feminists argue, pressures on choice will ensure
that supposedly free choices disadvantage women (e.g. Dodds and Jones,
1989a). This is particularly problematic when the medical
establishment presents burdensome technologies as the expected norm.
Choices are shaped by the salient alternatives, so that the widespread
adoption of new medical technologies will affect women's choices
(as the normalization of testing for Downs' syndrome shapes
women's choice to undergo such testing). The point is not that
adopting new technology is always problematic, but that the
repro-libertarian framework for evaluating it is naive and
misleading (Sherwin 1992; see also
 3.5
 below, State Policies). These concerns extend to the way in which
reproductive policy and technologies shape, and are shaped by, race as
well as gender (Roberts 1997; Russell 2018).



A further feminist concern is that the rhetoric surrounding
reproductive biotechnology commodifies women's bodies, devalues
women's role in reproduction, and treats women as mere means
rather than ends in themselves. For instance, some reproductive
services entail so-called "womb rental," "egg
harvesting," or "surrogate motherhood" (Rothman
1989; Ber 2000; Anderson 1990; Baron 2019). Feminists such as Corea
argue that the reproductive biotechnology establishment relies on a
distorted and stereotyped picture of the nature, desires, and needs of
women, as well as the success rate of the technologies it purveys, and
that these technologies result in physical harms to women (Corea 1985;
Brazier 1998).



By conceptualizing women and their fetuses or newborns as having
conflicting interests, rather than as in symbiotic harmony (as they
usually are), the medical establishment promotes an adversarial view
which lends itself to overriding pregnant women's treatment
decisions. Such interventions, such as court-ordered C-sections, are
especially problematic when similar interventions would not be imposed
on parents to save a born child's life (such as a court-ordered
blood transfusion); this inconsistency suggests a bias against
pregnant women's decision-making capacity. Understandings of
pregnancy and motherhood, feminists argue, need to be enriched by
considering women's experience of pregnancy and moving away from
an antagonistic medical model, as well as appreciating how that model
has been socially constructed (Purdy 1990; Kukla 2005; Mullin
2005).



Feminist care ethics, which early on took the mother-child
relationship as the model of caring (e.g., Held 1987), has provided a
rich conceptual resource for feminist procreative ethics. The
influence of care ethics can be seen, for example, in arguments which
foreground the value of intimate mother-fetus relationships in
examining the moral basis of parenthood and the legitimacy of contract
pregnancy (e.g., Gheaus 2016b). In light of the challenge to
traditional understandings of parenthood posed by new ARTs, Mary
Lyndon Shanley has argued for caregiving as the ground of moral
parenthood (Shanley 2018).



Finally, much feminist scholarship has focused on the unequal division
of labor between parents within the household and its effect on
girls' life chances, and hence on the state's role in
addressing this gendered division of parenting labor and defining the
legal institution of the family (Okin 1989, Card 1996, Schouten 2019;
see also
 3.5
 below). Feminist perspectives appear throughout the discussion below.
(See also the entry on
 feminist perspectives on the family.)


### 2.4 Anti-natalism



A further set of objections to the unburdened exercise of procreative
autonomy is anti-natalist. Anti-natalism is opposition to procreation.
In its local form anti-natalism applies only to particular people in
certain instances. In the case where a child would predictably
experience a life so miserable as to be not worth living, it may be
argued that procreation would be wrongful. Whether there are such
lives--and if so, what characterizes them--is controversial,
but it is not unreasonable to suppose that a life can be so
irremediably miserable that it is of no benefit to the individual who
endures it. Arguably, the lives of those born with Tay-Sachs disease
fit this description, and many argue that it is immoral to knowingly
bring such children into the world. Some authors go much further than
this, arguing that procreating is wrong unless the parent has reason
to think he or she can provide the child with a good chance of a
normal life. The general claim is that certain types of individuals
have an interest in not being brought into existence on account of the
quality of life they would have were they created (McMahon 1998;
Roberts 1998). ARTs allowing post-menopausal women to give birth have
prompted objections to post-menopausal motherhood on grounds of child
welfare; but such arguments seem to employ double standards (see Cutas
2007). Cassidy holds that prospective parents who believe they will
not be sufficiently competent should not procreate (Cassidy 2006).
Relatedly, Benatar argues that autonomy rights cannot permit risking
severe harm to children; those who risk transmitting HIV, for
instance, cannot assert a right to reproduce (Benatar 2010). Local
anti-natalism is also supported by the judgment that wrongful birth,
birth which wrongfully imposes undue risk and harm on a resulting
child, is possible (Shiffrin 1999).



Global anti-natalism opposes procreation in general. One global
anti-natalist position holds that in all cases procreation is a harm
to those brought into being. Benatar argues that while existence
brings pains as well as pleasures, non-existence is a lack of pains
and pleasures. While pain is bad, absence of pain and pleasure is not
bad, so it is always worse to be than not to be (Benatar 1997, 2006;
see also discussion of Shiffrin 1999, below; for responses, see
Overall 2012, Benatar and Wasserman 2015). Other global anti-natalist
positions focus on harms or costs to others. An environmentalist
anti-natalism argues that procreation is wrong for the same reasons
overconsumption is (Young 2001, MacIver 2015). An opportunity-cost
anti-natalism argues that the money spent on rearing a child would be
better spent on ameliorating the lives of those already existing
(Rachels 2014). And a misanthropic anti-natalism argues that humans
cause so much harm - to other humans, non-human animals, and the
environment - that there is a duty not to procreate (Benatar
2015). Others have argued that the availability of children needing
homes creates strong moral reasons to adopt rather than to procreate
(Friedrich 2013, Rulli 2014). There are also intermediate positions.
For example, Sarah Conly argues that the interests that ground a right
to procreate can be satisfied with only one child and so it may be
permissible to restrict the number of children an individual creates
when costs to third parties from overpopulation are substantial (Conly
2005, 2016; see also Statman 2005).



Note that anti-natalists do not always defend legal restrictions,
because interfering with procreation may involve intolerably illiberal
coercion of the person. Even those who do think that there are
circumstances in which interference with procreation can be justified
accept that there are important countervailing values. For example,
Benatar notes that the moral costs of forced abortion or sterilization
are "immense," but thinks that the moral costs of moderate
coercion or directive counseling should be weighed against the moral
costs of harm to future children (Benatar 2010; see also the
discussion of parental licensing in Section 5.2 below).



One response to anti-natalist views is to provide a justification for
the decision to procreate. Some authors, agreeing that procreation
requires a justification and that many common reasons for procreating
carry no moral weight, locate a possible justification in the unique
nature of the parent-child relationship, the desire for pregnancy, or
the desire to pass on valuable family traits (Overall 2012, Rulli
2016, Brake 2015, Ferracioli 2018; on whether one can make a rational
decision to have a child, see Paul 2015 and Krishnamurthy 2015).


## 3. The Morality of Procreation



For the most part, secular debates about the morality of procreation
focus on whether and when procreation is impermissible, rather than
whether it might be obligatory (though see Smilansky 1995 and Gheaus
2015 on whether there could be a duty to procreate). The debates
concerning the impermissibility of procreation raise deep issues in
metaphysics and value theory (Belshaw 2003; Holtug 2001; Kavka 1982;
Rachels 1998). We restrict our discussion to moral issues rather than
legal ones, and assume throughout that reproduction is fully voluntary
and informed--that is, neither coerced nor accidental.


### 3.1 The Non-Identity Problem and Impersonal Considerations



It might be hoped that we could give a full account of permissible
procreation by appealing only to the interests of the individuals
affected by procreative decisions. Unfortunately, there is reason to
think that this may not be possible. Consider the following sort of
case, introduced into the literature by Parfit (1984), and known as
the non-identity problem (Hanser 1990; Harman 2004; Woodward 1986;
entry on
 the nonidentity problem):



> 
> 
> Marie is taking a drug that she knows will cause a birth
> defect--say, a withered arm--in any child that she conceives
> (call this child "Amy"). In 3 months this drug will have
> passed from her body, and she will be able to conceive a child free
> from this defect (call this child "Sophie"). Intuitively,
> Marie does something wrong in deciding to have Amy rather than
> Sophie.
> 
> 
> 



Non-identity cases of this kind are called "same-number"
cases because they involve comparing situations that contain the same
number of individuals. Other versions of the non-identity problem
involve different-number (or non-comparative) choices:



> 
> 
> Sri has a genetic condition that she knows will cause any child she
> conceives to be born with a serious cognitive disability. Despite
> knowing this fact, Sri deliberately conceives and gives birth to a
> seriously cognitively disabled child, Aarav.
> 
> 
> 



Assume, plausibly, that Amy and Aarav have lives that are worth
living. Does Marie do something wrong in conceiving and giving birth
to Amy? Does Sri do something wrong conceiving and giving birth to
Aarav? Many are inclined to think that they do, but it is unclear how
we can capture this wrongness by appeal only to the interests of the
individuals involved. This is because wronging someone seems to
presuppose that things could have gone otherwise for that individual,
but things could not have gone otherwise for either Amy or Aarav.
Sri's putative wrong consists in creating Aarav, and doing
otherwise would have entailed creating no one. Her action has no
victim and therefore sets back no one's interests. Amy
isn't made worse off by Marie's actions, for had Marie
waited another three months before conceiving she would have given
birth to a different child (Sophie) instead of Amy. It is therefore
difficult to see how Marie might have harmed or wronged Amy.



It is also prima facie implausible that the interests of other parties
explain why these actions would be wrong: they are wanted and their
births don't harm their community.
  

The non-identity problem is not solely a problem for the morality of
procreation. Anyone who affects the welfare of future people in
identity-affecting ways may face it. Readers interested in general
approaches to the non-identity problem should consult the relevant
entry. Here we discuss just those aspects bearing on the ethics of
becoming parents (see also Hanser 1990; Vehmas 2002).



Feinberg (1992) compares situations like the Marie and Sri cases with
cases in which someone is harmed in the course of being saved from a
greater harm (e.g., his leg is broken while his life is being saved).
In both cases an evil or harm is justified in virtue of the fact that
it is a necessary condition of a greater good--in the one case
saving a person's life, in the other case bringing a life into
existence. Shiffrin (1999), however, holds that harming someone to
save them from a greater harm is morally distinct from harming them to
impose a "pure benefit" on them. Shiffrin claims that we
have serious qualms about harming someone without their consent to
secure a pure benefit for them, even when we can be sure that they
would regard the pure benefit as far outweighing the harm (see also
Steinbock and McClamrock 1994). She concludes that procreation is
routinely more morally problematic than is generally recognized.



Shiffrin's attempt to drive a wedge into Feinberg's
analogy raises questions of its own. First, one might challenge the
assumption that life is a pure benefit. Even if we assume that
Amy's life would be worth living, creating her would be a
benefit only on a rather peculiar conception of what a
"benefit" entails. Amy is not better off than she
otherwise would have been, for there is no way that she otherwise
would have been. Furthermore, the argument may prove too much. If one
is never justified in harming someone (without their consent) to
impose a pure benefit on them, and if existence always involves some
form of harm, then it must always be wrong to bring someone into
existence. A global form of anti-natalism (see
 Section 2.4)
 thereby seems to be the price of this solution to the non-identity
problem.



A number of authors, including Parfit, argue that we need to appeal to
impersonal considerations to solve the non-identity problem. Several
of these solutions appeal to the role morality of parents. According
to Freeman, "The principle of parental responsibility requires
that individuals should desist from having children unless certain
minimum conditions can be satisfied. Responsible parents want their
children to have good and fulfilling lives" (1997, 180). Freeman
goes on to claim that the principle of parental responsibility entails
that the very young and very old should not become parents. Similarly,
Purdy claims that one shouldn't reproduce unless one can ensure
that one's children will have a decent life, with clean water,
nutritious food, shelter, education, and medical care counting as
basic prerequisites (Purdy 1995). Purdy's position seems to
imply that many--even most--of the world's children
have been wrongly brought into existence. More recently, Wasserman has
argued that whether it is permissible to bring a child into existence
with certain characteristics (such as impairments), depends on the
reasons the prospective parents have for creating such a child. These
should be reasons that concern the good of the child, which can still
support creating a child whose life will predictably go worse than
that of another child who could be created instead (Wasserman 2005).
Others have taken similar reasoning to show that prospective parents
can be morally criticized for their attitudes to future children, such
that the desire to have a child with a harmful condition is wrongful
(Kahane 2009).



Not all of those who have written on the non-identity problem accept
that Marie does wrong in deciding to have Amy rather than Sophie, or
that Sri does wrong in reproducing. Indeed, some find the suggestion
that it is wrong to (knowingly) bring disabled children into the world
abhorrent due to the implications of such views for individuals with
disabilities. Asch holds that a woman has a right to an abortion, but
also that it would be wrong to have an abortion to prevent the birth
of a disabled child. Abortion on such grounds is immoral, she argues,
because it communicates that "disability is so terrible it
warrants not being alive" (Asch 1999, 387). The argument could
easily be extended to decisions about whether to conceive a certain
type of child. Does prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion, or
preimplantation genetic diagnosis, communicate that disability is so
terrible it warrants not being alive? On its face this claim is
contestable; the associated decisions are highly specific to each
case. And even if such acts did communicate something, it is unclear
that it would be a thesis about relative qualities of life (see also
Buchanan et al. 2000, chap. 7). For more discussion of the ethics of
creating people with disabilities see encyclopedia article on
 disability: health, well-being, and personal relationships.


### 3.2 Assisted Reproductive Technologies



Suppose that competent adults have the liberty to procreate. Are there
limits on the means that they may take in order to do so? In this and
the following section we focus on three methods of ART that have
generated controversy: gamete donation, in vitro fertilization (IVF),
and commercial surrogacy. (Here we focus on technologies already
widely used; for a discussion of reproductive human cloning, see the
entry on
 cloning.)



Most discussion has centered on whether it is permissible for
prospective parents to avail themselves of these novel technologies
for procreation. There has also been some debate over whether people
have a claim to access these technologies through public health care
systems or private health insurance. Most rich countries with
universal health care provide some treatment for infertility. For
example, the United Kingdom's National Health Service funds a
limited number of cycles of IVF for couples who meet eligibility
criteria. Given limited resources, providing ART takes away from money
that could be spent on other health care interventions (Roberts 1997).
In this context it is particularly important whether infertility is
properly considered a disease or disability in need of treatment
(Neumann 1997; McLeod 2017). Another broad social concern raised by
all these technologies is their role in the reproduction of race; when
such technologies are used to produce racially similar children, they
may perpetuate the idea of race as natural, as opposed to a social
construction (Russell 2018).



Gamete donation involves the provision of gametes by a man or woman
who is not intended to be the resulting child's social parent.
Insemination by another man is not a new technology per se, but the
modern phenomena of sperm banking and anonymous providers have led
some to question the morality of artificial insemination by donor
(AID). Some objections clearly have a religious basis; we therefore do
not discuss them here. But some conservatives about procreative
liberty have also developed secular objections to gamete donation. The
most interesting of these focuses on the practice of paying gamete
providers. For example, Thomas Murray criticizes "insemination
by vendor" on the grounds that it inserts the values of the
marketplace into family life and thereby threatens to undermine it
(Murray 1996, 34). The process of harvesting ova also involves serious
risks to the woman providing them, which are discussed in the
description of the IVF process below.



A different set of concerns centers on the moral responsibilities of
gamete providers. Since in most jurisdictions gamete providers must
waive all parental claims over their genetic offspring, it has been
widely assumed that they do not have moral parental responsibilities.
Several philosophers have, however, argued that gamete donation is
morally dubious, precisely because providers take their parental
responsibilities too lightly (Benatar 1999; Nelson 1991; Moschella
2014). The argument can be challenged in at least two ways. First, we
might challenge the claim that gamete providers typically treat their
parental responsibilities too lightly by transferring or alienating
them (Bayne 2003, Page 1985), especially in the case when gamete
donation occurs in a context in which assisted reproduction is
regulated and would-be gamete recipients are screened. Second, one
could argue that in the broad nexus of persons responsible for
creating a child through assisted reproduction, the contribution of
gamete providers is not especially morally significant (Fuscaldo
2006). (See the entry on
 gamete donation and sale.)
 However, recent critics have argued that gamete donors morally cannot
transfer or alienate their parental responsibilities because these
involve maintaining particular relationships which cannot be
transferred (Weinberg 2016; see also Brandt 2017).



A distinct debate concerns the permissibility of procreating using
anonymous gamete donors. Velleman argues that this practice is wrong
because it frustrates children's interest in knowing their
genetic forebears (Velleman 2005). In response, Haslanger argues that
not only does this view make certain forms of adoption morally
suspect, it presupposes implausible connections between genetics,
identity, and human flourishing (Haslanger 2009). Policy debates over
anonymous gamete donation have expanded to the question of whether
donor-conceived individuals--as adults--have the right to
know who their genetic parents are (Melo-Martin 2014;
Groll 2020). Anonymous donation is now illegal in a number of
jurisdictions.



IVF involves fertilizing ova outside the womb and transferring
resulting embryos into the uterus. The woman whose ova are used is
given a hormone treatment that induces producing multiple ova, which
are harvested by a needle inserted through the vaginal wall.
Fertilization may involve incubating the ovum in sperm or injecting a
single sperm into the ovum in intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
Several embryos are transferred into the uterus after three to five
days. Since the birth of the first "test-tube baby" in
1978, IVF has become a fairly common procedure for addressing certain
forms of infertility.



Objections to IVF have focused on negative consequences for the women
or their offspring and on wider societal implications. Stimulation of
the ovaries may lead to ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a
potentially serious condition. Like any surgical procedure there are
risks involved in retrieval of ova. Transferring multiple embryos
increases risk of multiple pregnancy, which can be risky for both
mother and fetuses. Fetuses born as a result of IVF may be at an
increased risk of birth defects, lower birth weights, and premature
birth (Bower and Hansen 2005; Reefhuis et al. 2009). The absolute risk
of these problems remains relatively low, however, and so they do not
seem to justify a blanket prohibition on IVF.
  

Similar objections to those raised against gamete donation have also
been raised against IVF, including that it commodifies children and
female reproduction. Feminists have developed a more subtle critique.
Sherwin (1987) argues that the powerful desires that many people,
especially women, have for their own biological children are the
product of problematic social arrangements and cultural values. While
reproductive technologies like IVF may help some (privileged) women
get what they want, they also further entrench the oppressive societal
values that create these powerful desires in the first place.



IVF typically results in creating more embryos than are used in the
fertility treatment. The remaining embryos may be given to other women
for implantation, donated for research, destroyed, or cryogenically
stored. There are likely over a million cryogenically stored embryos
in the United States alone (Christianson et al. 2020). Depending on
one's view of the moral importance of human embryos this may be
considered an especially worrying consequence of IVF. People who
believe that such embryos have the same moral status as humans will
judge that destroying them is wrong and creating them without a plan
for implantation is comparably bad. The use of surplus embryos as a
source of totipotent stem cells for medical research has generated
objections from religious groups and conservatives opposed to
abortion. Consistency would seem to require that anyone who objects to
using these embryos in research ought also to object to their creation
in the first place, since it almost inevitably results in surplus
embryos that will eventually be destroyed.


### 3.3 "Surrogacy" and Contractually Assisted Reproduction



Perhaps the most controversial form of assisted reproduction is
so-called "surrogate" motherhood or contract pregnancy.
Such arrangements can take many forms, but the most widely discussed
involves two parties, a contracting couple and a
"surrogate" or gestational mother. The gestational mother
carries a child derived from the gametes of one or both members of the
contracting couple and agrees to give the child over to the couple
after birth. Surrogacy is now regulated in most countries. Commercial
surrogacy is widely, although not universally, illegal, driving an
increase in international surrogacy. Many more jurisdictions permit
so-called "altruistic" surrogacy, which does not involve
paying the surrogate mother over and above compensating her for direct
costs.



Many of the disputes surrounding contract pregnancy focus on the
question of who should be given parental rights and responsibilities
if the arrangement breaks down. (In some cases, neither party to the
arrangement wants to keep the baby; in other cases both parties want
to keep it.) Indeed, much of the impetus for recent accounts of the
grounds of parenthood has derived from attempts to adjudicate such
disputes (Shanley 2018, and see
 section 4).



Repro-libertarians insist that a right to procreative autonomy entails
protecting most methods of "collaborative reproduction,"
so long as they are safe and consensual (Robertson 1994, chap. 6). For
them, the right to procreate is a special case of the right to make
binding contracts (see Straehle, 2019). But it is not settled whether
such contracts ought to be legal and, if so, enforceable.



One central point of contention is whether gestational surrogacy
involves commodification--for example, by entailing that the
gestational mother is selling her baby--or whether it is no
different in kind from other forms of paid childcare (Anderson 1990;
Radin 1996; Glover et al. 1989; Shanley 1993; but see also Arneson
1992). It is also disputed whether a parental right acquired through
gestation can be contractually transferred: on a gestationalist view
which grounds the right to parent in the intimate relationship between
gestator and fetus, the justification of the right entails that it is
not subject to transfer (Gheaus 2016b, and see 4.2).



A distinct concern has to do with whether anyone who undertakes a
contractual obligation to surrender custody of future children can do
so autonomously. Some writers argue that such decisions cannot be
autonomous, and hence that surrogacy contracts should not only be
unenforceable but also illegal (Dodds and Jones 1989b; see Purdy 1989
and Oakley 1992 for a response).



Contract pregnancy is also criticized on grounds of harm to women. One
such harm is that, in practice, it treats women as, and reinforces the
perception of them as, mere fetal "containers" (Purdy
1990, Satz 2010, Baron 2019). The fact that it gives medical staff and
intending parents extensive control over women's sexuality and
their bodies is particularly troubling in the context of gender
inequality (Satz 2010). But others reject bans on surrogacy contracts
as paternalistic, unduly limiting women's freedom. Nevertheless,
even those who defend contract pregnancy urge that safeguards, such as
mandated post-natal waiting periods during which the gestational
mother is permitted to change her mind or age-based restrictions on
who may enter into such contracts, should be in place to protect the
interests of the child and of the gestator (Steinbock 1988; Straehle
2016; see also Botterell and McLeod 2016).



More recently, the discussion has moved to ethical analyses of
international surrogacy arrangements. These have typically involved
commissioning parents from high-income countries and surrogate mothers
from poorer populations in less wealthy countries, including India and
Thailand. The vast power differentials between the parties, expanded
roles for surrogacy agencies brokering the arrangements, and loose
regulatory regimes have made for heightened concern about exploitation
and other potential wrongs (Panitch 2013, and see discussion in Purdy
1989, Wilkinson 2016).


### 3.4 Enhancement



Some couples who undergo IVF also opt for preimplantation genetic
diagnosis (PGD) whereby the genomes of their embryos are analyzed and
particular embryos then selected for implantation. This is more common
among couples at risk for transmitting a genetic disease or who are
trying to create a child compatible with an existing ill child so that
she can be used as a source of donated stem cells. However, it can be
used for selecting for or against other traits, such as sex, or
disability--for example, some deaf parents want to raise children
who inherit their deafness. Such uses of PGD are controversial (on sex
selection see Heyd 2003; Robertson 2003; Purdy 2007; ESHRE Task Force
2013; on selecting deafness see Karpin 2007; Fahmy 2011; Schroeder
2018).



Current technology is mostly limited to selecting among existing
embryos. However, the recent development of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing
techniques has finally made it possible to genetically alter gametes
and embryos in vivo. This has made questions about the permissibility
of genetic enhancement pressing.



Several critics of genetic enhancement argue that permitting
enhancement is liable to undermine important human values. Sandel
argues that the control that enhancement technology would allow
parents is liable to undermine their humility in the face of the gift
of their children, impose responsibilities that we are not prepared to
deal with, and threaten social solidarity (Sandel 2007). Habermas
argues that parents who genetically enhance their children will,
through the control they exert, prevent their children from entering
relationships of moral equality and undermine their ability to be
autonomous (Habermas 2003). Both have been criticized for exaggerating
the likely effects of permitting enhancement technologies (Fenton
2006; Lev 2011).



A second argument against permitting parents to genetically enhance
their offspring is that it is liable to exacerbate unfairness.
Enhancements will probably be available only to richer parents. As a
result, their offspring, who are already advantaged over their peers,
would be even better able to compete against them (Etieyibo 2012).This
is commonly raised as a particular objection to genetic (or other
biomedical) enhancements, but it is not clear why there is something
distinctive about genetic enhancement that renders it more troubling
than other ways in which parents attempt to enhance their children,
such as private schooling.



The fairness objection also assumes that the advantages of genetic
enhancement are competitive advantages, so that an enhancement would
make the recipient better able to compete with others for goods such
as careers and social status. This assumption underlies concerns both
that the availability of enhancements would exacerbate existing
inequalities and that if universally available they would be
collectively self-defeating (as, for example, if everyone were to add
6 inches to their height) (Glannon 2001). However, this assumption
might be false; for example, literacy is a non-genetic enhancement
which is beneficial both to the literate person and others (Buchanan
2008).



While most discussions of the ethics of genetic enhancement have
focused on whether the practice is ever permissible, some ethicists
argue that it is not only permissible for parents to enhance their
children, but a positive duty. Savulescu (2001) argues for what he
calls the Principle of Procreative Beneficence: couples should use
pre-genetic diagnosis and selective abortion to choose the child, of
the children they could have, who will have the best life. This
naturally extends to using genetic enhancement. Savulescu's
justification for the principle of Procreative Beneficence is that it
seems irrational not to select the best child when no other reasons
are relevant to one's choice. But this seems like a very weak
principle: it seems likely that at least some other reason will
frequently apply. For example, prospective parents might just prefer
to leave their child's genetic makeup up to chance. If this is
not an irrational preference, then it plausibly gives some reason for
them not to select any particular embryo to implant. Savulescu's
view is extended in further papers which claim that the principle of
Procreative Beneficence has greater moral weight than simply being a
tiebreaker when no other reasons apply (Savulescu and Kahane 2009,
281; for criticism see Parker 2010, Carter and Gordon 2013, Bennett
2014). These and related issues are discussed at length in the entries
on
 enhancement and
 eugenics.



Finally, controversy is not limited to genetic interventions: there
are live debates about whether parents may choose (male) circumcision,
clitoridectomy, marrow donation, sex assignment of inter-sexed
children, and other surgical interventions (see, e.g., Benatar and
Benatar 2003 on circumcision; Parens 2006, on surgically shaping
children).


### 3.5 State Policies



Many bioethicists move beyond a focus on individual rights to consider
broader effects of reproductive policy. As discussed in 2.2, these
include communitarian conservatives who are concerned with the effects
of reproductive policy, particularly regarding ARTs, on social
attitudes towards the value of life and the meaning of family (Sandel
2007). They also include liberals who share values of autonomy and
equality with repro-libertarians, and as a result treat market
exchanges and consensual services as "innocent until proven
guilty." But rather than focusing just on the effects of
particular procreative choices, these liberals also attend to the
impact of institutionalizing practices such as genetic selection or
IVF within a society that aims to maintain liberal background
institutions (Glover et al. 1989; Buchanan et al. 2000; Brock 2005).
Institutionalization foregrounds concerns that liberals focused on
individual choices downplay, such as the effects of large numbers, the
incentives that policies create, and opportunity costs. Thus for
policy liberals it will be impossible to determine the scope of
procreative rights without considering institutional structure and
social context, given reasonable assumptions about human
motivations.



For instance, when many people make similar reproductive choices, the
resulting "baby boom" may reshape the social, economic,
political, and environmental landscape. Such concerns apply to the use
of ARTs, such as for sex selection: sex ratios might become grossly
skewed in countries with a strong preference for male children (Xue
2010). Such societal consequences are also predicted by disability
theorists who argue that normalizing genetic testing and embryo
selection or abortion to prevent certain impairments could lead to
increased stigma against and decreased resources for people with such
impairments (see also the entry on
 disability).
 Such concerns might provide grounds for restricting ARTs or
incentivizing their use.



Much recent debate has focused on the effects of the legal institution
of the family on procreative choices and child welfare. Arguments for
incentivizing procreation within marriage assume that children reared
within marriages will benefit as contrasted with those reared outside
marriages (Galston 1991, chap. 10; but see Young 1995). Others have
argued that legally separating marriage and parenting will allow the
state to support both children and their caregivers more directly
(Shrage 2018) or that recognizing more than two parents will benefit
children as well as serving broader social goals such as resource
conservation (Gheaus 2019, Grill 2020). Such revisionist arguments
extend to legal institutionalization of non-parental care for
children: for example, Gheaus has argued for the institutional
provision of non-parental care on child welfare grounds (Gheaus 2011,
2018b), and Brake for the legal recognition of paid childcare workers
as family (Brake 2018). Liberal feminists have argued for state family
policy--such as parental leave and incentives for egalitarian
co-parenting--to promote gender equality (e.g., Schouten 2019).
Adoption policy has also been the focus of recent discussion, with
debates over open adoption and attention to the difficulties of LGBT
adoption (Haslanger and Witt 2006; Baylis and McLeod 2014, Part IV).
Family policy also has effects on racial equality, as Dorothy Roberts
points out in her criticism of state policies on terminating parental
rights which disporpotionately affect black families (Roberts
2006).



Liberal accounts of procreative autonomy may face problems in a
context of social inequality and over-population. Some affirm
procreative autonomy, but regard it as compatible with apparently
coercive population policies such as limitations on the number of
children particular persons may have. This may be because they regard
procreative autonomy as a merely prima facie right, less weighty than
other rights, such as the right to a minimally decent quality of life
(Bayles 1979). Or they may conceive of procreative autonomy more
narrowly than is commonly done (O'Neill 1979; Hill 1991).
O'Neill, for example, construes procreative autonomy as
requiring an intention to rear the resulting child so that it has a
life at least normal for its society. Without such intentions, parents
are not exercising a right to procreate, and thus policies to curtail
their behavior do not constitute coercive infringements of procreative
autonomy. Recent work in this area has examined the extent to which
the state is justified in restricting procreation in light of its
environmental costs (e.g., Conly 2016). In sum, on such views,
procreative autonomy is one among many important forms of autonomy,
which may conflict among themselves, and with the state's
legitimate (or compulsory) ends such as the provision of public goods
and compliance with national constitutions. Talk of rights, from such
a standpoint, is appropriate only within a nexus of liberties, claims,
powers, and ends. From such a perspective, the implications of a right
to procreative autonomy are much less straightforward than from the
individually focused repro-libertarian perspective.



One further problem for liberals is posed by divergent societal views
on the nature of the good for children. Respecting such divergent
views seems to be required by equal respect, but this is in tension
with the need to define standards for child welfare and parental
authority. For example, balancing child welfare and parent autonomy
may be difficult in culturally diverse societies, in which state
standards of child welfare may be criticized as discriminatory against
child-rearing practices of cultural minorities (e.g., Dwyer 2018; for
discussion of child welfare and state neutrality, see Fowler 2010 and
2014).


### 3.6 A Right Not to Procreate?



While we have set aside the question of abortion, we will briefly
address two other cases in which avoiding procreation and parenthood
has been taken as protected by procreative autonomy. First is the case
of legal paternity assignment for the purposes of child support,
particularly in the case of "involuntary fathers." Second
is the case of the disposition of frozen embryos created from the
gametes of two people who now disagree on their use. We can usefully
distinguish rights not to become a gestational parent, not to become a
legal parent, and not to become a genetic parent (Cohen 2007, 1140).
The cases we are concerned with in this section relate to the two
latter (alleged) rights: not to become a legal or a genetic
parent.



While avoiding unwanted paternity has become a topic for the
"men's rights" movement, arguments for a
"father's right to choose" can begin from feminist
defenses of procreative autonomy. What is at issue here is not whether
an unwilling father has the right to compel a pregnant woman to have
an abortion - this would be an intolerable invasion of her
procreative autonomy - but whether he should be assigned the
legal status, and legal support obligations, of fatherhood. If women
have the right to avoid the status and burdens of motherhood, by
parity of reasoning - the argument goes - men should have
the right to avoid the status and burdens of fatherhood. Of course,
the physical burdens of pregnancy provide a clear disanalogy between
the cases (for related legal arguments against arguing from abortion
cases to genetic parenthood cases, see Cohen 2007). But dismissing the
comparison too quickly risks inattention to the costs of "forced
fatherhood" on worse-off men (and their disproportionate
enforcement on men of color in the US) (Brake 2005). Some would argue
that even if men have the right to avoid involuntary fatherhood
(especially in cases such as a "purloined sperm" case, in
which they can deny moral responsibility), the claims of children
outweigh a right not to become a parent (Overall 2012).



Cases of dispute over frozen embroyos, such as *Evans v. the United
Kingdom*, foreground issues of privacy and control over
one's genetic material - especially, whether there is a
right not to become a genetic parent (again, here we set aside the
question of the moral status of the embryo). In the *Evans*case, a couple produced embryos through IVF, intending to
procreate together, but separated before the embryos could be
implanted. Subsequently, the man involved asked that the embryos be
destroyed; the law required that both parties consent for the
procedure to continue. The woman brought a legal challenge, hoping to
proceed with implantation.



Considerations of procreative autonomy, control of one's genetic
material, could be brought to bear on either side here. Is there a
right not to become a genetic parent, and if so, does it override any
other rights or moral considerations pertinent to such disagreements?
A right not to become a genetic parent could be grounded in privacy or
property right in one's genetic material (including
informational). But once the embryo is intentionally created with the
consent of the gamete donor, it may be argued that any prior property
claims are ceded; the genetic contribution cannot be retrieved from
this "miscible joint property" (Chan and Quigley 2007; see
also Cohen 2007). On one feminist perspective, the woman who has
undergone IVF ought to control the embryos, because of the additional
burdens of the procedure and any future treatments on her (Overall
1995).



The resolution to these questions depends, at least in part, on the
underlying moral grounds of parenthood. For example, if one acquires
parental moral obligations by causing a child to exist, that will have
very different implications than if one only acquires such obligations
through a voluntary undertaking. The next section will examine such
accounts of the moral grounds of parenthood.


## 4. Becoming Parents



In virtue of what does one become a moral parent, i.e., a primary
bearer of parental rights and/or parental responsibilities with
respect to a particular child? We can distinguish four general
answers: genetic, labor-based, intentional (or voluntarist), and
causal accounts. On monistic versions, only one of these properties
generates parental relationships. On pluralistic accounts, more than
one of these relations can ground parenthood.



Some contemporary discussions assume that moral parental rights and
responsibilities or obligations are inseparable (Bayne and Kolers
2003). But Archard has argued that this "parental package"
view is untenable (Archard and Benatar 2010, 22-25; Archard
2010; see also Austin 2007, chap. 3). To take Archard's example,
an estranged, abusive parent may have moral and legal support
obligations but no parental rights; obligations to ensure a child is
provided for do not entail parental rights. It is more plausible, as
Archard notes, that parental rights and responsibilities--which,
as contrasted with obligations, concern the hands-on, day-to-day
rearing of the child--come together. Even these, in some
circumstances, might come apart--as when an estranged parent
retains some decision-making rights but holds no responsibilities.
Moreover, the grounds for parental rights and parental
responsibilities may be distinct, even if parents typically have both.
For example, Millum argues for a labor-based account of parental
rights but a voluntarist account of parental responsibilities (Millum
2017).


### 4.1 Genetic accounts



Genetic theories ground parenthood in the relation of direct genetic
derivation. Geneticism thus places parenthood in the nexus of other
familial relations, such as being a sibling, cousin, and so on, which
appear to have a genetic basis and which appear (at least to some) to
come along with certain moral rights and responsibilities.



Hall (1999) defends geneticism by appeal to the Lockean notion of
self-ownership. Since genetic parents own the genetic material from
which the child is constituted, they have a prima facie parental claim
to the child. There are a number of problems with this line of
argument (Kolers & Bayne 2001) and it is an argument that Locke
himself rejected (Franklin-Hall 2012). First, it subsumes parental
relations under property relations, by attempting to derive a claim
about parenthood from premises involving claims about ownership. The
plausibility of this derivation is based on emphasizing parental
rights associated with exclusivity and authority, and downplaying
parental responsibilities. Those responsibilities--to both child
and community--pull sharply against a property-based analysis of
parenthood. Second, taking self-ownership seriously entails that
children own themselves, and this surely defeats any proprietary claim
that their parents might have in them (Archard 1990). Third, genetic
parents do not provide the material from which the child is
constituted in utero; that derives from the gestational mother, not
the genetic parents (Silver 2001). Of course, the child's
genetic make-up structures that matter, but to argue for the priority
of the genetic over the gestational contribution is to argue for the
priority of form over matter, and it is not obvious that this can be
done.



Other arguments for geneticism derive from considering paternity, in
that direct genetic derivation appears to provide the most plausible
account of the basis of fatherhood. Several recent legal cases have
overturned adoptions on the grounds that the estranged father,
unidentified at the time of birth, has returned to claim the child
(Rosenman 1995, Shanley 1995). Supporters of these decisions endorse
the view that unalienated genetic claims to children can override
months or even years of rearing by the adoptive parents, as well as
the earlier failure of the father to claim the child. Similarly, in
"surrogacy" cases, many writers have argued--or
simply assumed--that a genetic father may have his own child by
contracting with a surrogate mother. This seems to presuppose a
genetic account of paternity; and it is a small step from a genetic
account of paternity to a genetic account of parenthood. One need
appeal only to the principle of "parity," according to
which the sort of relationship that makes one person a parent suffices
to make anyone else a parent (Bayne & Kolers 2003; Austin
2004).


### 4.2 Labor-based accounts



An alternative account views parents' work, rather than their
genetic relationships, as essential to the parental relation.
According to these labor-based accounts, people who play or have
played a parental role in a child's life have thereby become the
parents. In this spirit, a number of authors have argued that the
primary ground of parenthood is the gestational relation (Rothman
1989; Feldman 1992). In reproductive contexts in which a child's
gestational mother differs from its genetic mother--as in egg (or
embryo) donation and gestational surrogacy--it is therefore the
gestational mother who has the primary claim to parental rights and
responsibilities. This line of argument can be expanded to include
people besides the gestational mother who have taken a parental role
in rearing a child (Millum 2010; 2017).



Three main considerations are presented in favor of labor-based
accounts. One focuses on the interests of the child. Where a child has
been looked after by a person or people for some time, it is thought
to be very damaging for her to be taken away from them (Archard 2004).
In the case of gestation, since the gestational mother is guaranteed
to be identifiable at birth, it may be thought in the best interests
of the child that she be regarded as the mother (Annas 1984).
Moreover, the child and gestator are already involved in an intimate
relationship at birth, which it is arguably prima facie wrong to sever
(Gheaus 2018a). However, while recognizing the gestational mother or
caregivers as parents will sometimes serve the best interests of the
child, it is implausible that this will always be the case. This
argument might, at best, ground laws presuming that the gestational
mother and rearing parents have a claim to be the legal parents. Since
there will likely be cases in which being reared by someone else would
be better for the child, it will be difficult to justify the
assignment of parenthood on the grounds of labor in every case.



A second line of argument appeals to what parents deserve for the work
they do. Gestational mothers typically invest a substantial amount of
effort into the child. In Narayan's words, a gestational mother
typically undergoes "considerable discomfort, effort, and risk
in the course of pregnancy and childbirth" (Narayan 1999, 81;
also Gheaus 2012). While this account appears to give a special role
to gestational mothers, it can include parenting partners who help
bear the costs or contribute to establishing a relationship (for
example, by viewing an ultrasound image together). Similarly, the
people who care for a child invest a great deal of work. It might
therefore be thought that they deserve to be the parents (Millum 2010;
2017).



Labor-based accounts have the advantage over genetic accounts that
they can explain why the individuals they pick out as the parents
ought to have parental rights. They also incorporate adoptive and
other non-biological parental relationships into a single account of
parenthood, whereas genetic accounts seem forced to view
non-biological parenthood as a distinct type of normative
relationship. Objections to gestationalist accounts of parenthood may
start from the problem of paternity: if gestation is necessary for
parenthood, how can men become fathers (Bayne & Kolers 2003)?
Broader labor-based accounts that count the work of other caregivers
can explain fatherhood, but they still seem to give the gestational
mother veto power over other potential parents. As Barbara Katz
Rothman puts it: "if men want to have children, they will either
have to develop the technology that enables them to become pregnant
... or have children through their relationships with
women" (Rothman 1989, 257). Some will find this implausible.


### 4.3 Intentional and voluntarist accounts



A third approach to parenthood, popular with legal theorists, appeals
to intentions as the ground of parenthood (Hill 1991; Parker 1982;
Shultz 1990; Stumpf 1986). Intentionalists motivate their position by
appeal to cases like the following. The Khans wish to have a child
"of their own." They screen egg and sperm providers and
find providers who satisfy their requirements. They then select a
gestational mother, who carries the fetus to term and then hands the
infant over to the Khans. Intentionalists argue that because they
"carefully and intentionally orchestrated the procreational act,
bringing together all the necessary components with the intention of
creating a unique individual whom they intend to raise as their
own" (Hill 1991, 359), the Khans should be regarded as the
child's sole parents.



Another argument for intentionalism appeals to the "case of the
misplaced sperm":



> 
> 
> Bruce is about to undergo some risky medical treatment, and has placed
> some of his sperm in a sperm-bank in case he needs it at a later date.
> Through a bureaucratic mishap, Bruce's sperm is swapped with
> that of a sperm-donor and is used by Bessie to produce a child. Does
> Bruce acquire parental rights and responsibilities over Bessie's
> child?
> 
> 
> 



Intuitions vary here, but there is at least some pull towards denying
that Bruce's genetic relation to Bessie's child gives him
any parental claim over it. The reason Bruce lacks a parental relation
to Bessie's child seems to be that he didn't intentionally
bring the child into existence.



Intentionalism construes parenthood as relying on facts about agency
rather than biology; for the intentionalist, parenthood is
fundamentally a moral relationship rather than a biological one (see
Fuscaldo 2006, for discussion). Some philosophical defenses of
intentionalism appeal to a voluntaristic account of responsibilities
in general (Van Zyl 2002). If special obligations to particular others
are generally acquired voluntarily, then it is plausible that parental
obligations are also voluntarily incurred (O'Neill 1979; Brake
2005, 2010; for criticism see Prusak 2011a, b). Furthermore, parental
obligations are role obligations. While it is a matter of debate
whether any role obligations can be acquired involuntarily, it is at
least plausible that roles assumed as adults (as opposed to roles one
is born into) require voluntary acceptance. Finally, parental role
obligations are conventional: their scope and content varies by
jurisdiction and society. This suggests an unfairness if such
extensive obligations are incurred involuntarily (Brake 2010). On the
other hand, once it is recognized that parental obligations are
conventional, the content of parental obligations and the voluntary
actions required to acquire them can be explained with reference to
social conventions of parenthood (Millum 2008; 2017). Another defense
of intentionalism appeals to parental autonomy, as opposed to the way
in which obligations are incurred: Richards argues for a variant of
the intentional view according to which parental rights derive from
"a right to continue [projects] we have underway"
(Richards 2010, 23).



One objection to intentionalism concerns the content of the intentions
that are supposed to ground parenthood. Consider a case in which a
couple conceives by accident and then form intentions to give up the
baby for adoption rather than rear it. This intention endures until 15
minutes after birth, at which point they change their minds and decide
to rear the child. It is highly implausible that for the first 15
minutes of the child's life they are no more its parents than
anyone else.



Perhaps the most widespread objection to the voluntarist account is
that it seems to absolve unintending procreators from parental
obligation. However, many share the view that procreators, intending
or not, who voluntarily engaged in sex have a moral responsibility to
a resulting child due to their role in causing it to exist (Austin
2007; Fuscaldo 2006; Millum 2008).



Whatever the prospects of a voluntarist account of parenthood, a
voluntarist account of familial relations in general is implausible.
The duties that siblings have to each other, or that children have to
their parents, are not easily understood as voluntary undertakings.
This is a problem for voluntarist accounts of parenthood to the extent
that duties between parents and children should fit within a wider
framework of familial duties (Rachels 1989; Mills 2003; see Mullin
2010, for discussion; and the entry on
 special obligations).


### 4.4 Causal accounts



Finally, parenthood may be grounded in causation (Nelson 1991; Bigelow
et al. 1988; Blustein 1997; Archard 2010). A causal account differs
from intentionalism in that one can cause something without intending
to do so. Indeed, one can cause a certain state of affairs even when
one is unaware that one's actions could do so. One needn't
have grasped the connection between sexual intercourse and pregnancy
in order to be the cause of a child's existence.



One of the attractions of causalism is its promise to account for the
plausibility of genetic, labor-based, and intentional accounts of
parenthood. Genetic, gestational, and caregiving relationships
contribute to the child's existence or development, and, in the
cases that some intentionalists appeal to, the commissioning couple
are a cause of the child's existence. Causalism offers to
explain its competitors.



But causal accounts face problems: first, what is meant by
"causation" in this context? 'But-for'
causation is too weak to ground parenthood, because its scope is so
wide: for example, procreation might not have occurred
'but-for' the urgings of would-be grandparents or the
actions of the match-making friend who introduced the parents. This is
the "too many parents" problem (Hanna 2019). But it is
unclear what notion of causation the causal theorist should adopt
instead of 'but-for' causation (Blustein 1997). Second,
what implications does the causal account have? Even with a
satisfactory account of causation it may be unclear whom the account
ascribes parenthood to in any particular case--or if it is clear
enough, there is a risk of an ad hoc account of causation tailor-made
for this purpose. Concern with the arbitrariness of the causal chain
by means of which a child may be created leads writers such as
Fuscaldo (2006) to emphasize that what is wanted is not a theory of
causation but of agency (see also Austin 2004, 2007). This leads
causal theorists back in the direction of intentionalism.



A related problem is that causal accounts often leave it unclear how
causal responsibility generates moral responsibility. Sometimes it
appears that the thought is that procreators, by causing a child to
exist, have placed it in a needy position and so owe it, as
compensation, "procreative costs." But these costs are
arguably not equivalent to the weighty responsibilities of parenthood
(Brake 2010). The question is whether, as a result of causal
responsibility for their existence, parents merely owe children repair
of their needy condition, by fostering survival to adulthood, or
whether such "procreative costs" include a richer set of
parental responsibilities, such as a duty to love and to make the
child "content with his condition" (Prusak 2011b, 67).



One final alternative, as noted above, is a 'pluralist'
account which allows that more than one of these relations (such as
causation or intention) may be sufficient, but not necessary, for
parenthood (Bayne and Kolers 2003). Pluralist accounts have not yet
been developed in depth.



Having outlined the main theories of the grounds of parenthood, we
turn now to questions concerning the morality of being a parent.


## 5. Being Parents


### 5.1 Parental Rights



Parents have moral and legal rights regarding their children. They
have the liberty to make decisions on behalf of their children
regarding matters such as diet, schooling, association with others,
and--more controversially--religious observance, and the
right to exclude others from such decision-making. Such rights
decrease in strength and scope as children gain decision-making
capacity, yet until the child reaches moral or legal competence,
issues of substituted judgment and surrogate decision-making remain
(Ross 2002).



Parental rights' content, extent, and relation to parental
obligations is determined by the underlying theory of why parents
possess such rights. On the child-centered or fiduciary model,
parental rights piggyback on parental responsibilities to children,
which are morally fundamental. One such theory is Blustein's
"priority thesis." According to the priority thesis,
parents acquire rights in order to carry out their responsibilities;
thus responsibilities are morally prior to rights (Blustein 1982,
104-114). As Archard writes, "A parent can choose for his
child, and exclude others from the making of these choices, only in
the service of and thus constrained by a duty to care for the child.
It is in the first instance because a dependent child must have
decisions made for it that a designated parent is entitled to make
those decisions." (Archard 2010, 108; see also Brennan and
Noggle 1997; Austin 2007).



Other theories of parental rights focus on parents' interests.
Historically, parenthood has often been regarded as a possessory (or
proprietary) relationship. Some genetic accounts of parenthood imply
the proprietarian view that parents own their children (see 4.1; Hall
1999; Narveson 2002). However, property rights seem inappropriate here
for several reasons: children cannot be sold and they cannot be used
however the parent wishes. While it might be responded that parental
property rights are limited, prohibiting sale and certain uses, this
does not address the more fundamental objection that persons cannot be
property.



Other theories provide more plausible support for parent-centered, as
opposed to child-centered, accounts of parental rights in terms of
parents' interests. Brighouse and Swift argue for parental
rights on the basis of the irreplaceable good offered by parenting.
Because parenting is a project with goods which cannot be obtained
through other activities, such as the responsibility of caring for a
child and the receipt of children's spontaneous trust,
affection, and intimacy, the interest in parenting should be
protected. On this account, parental rights, not parental obligations,
are fundamental, because the parents' interests are the basis
for the right (Brighouse and Swift 2006, 2014; see also Shoeman 1980).
One line of objection is to ask whether the interest in parenting is
likely to be undermined by state intervention in parental
decision-making. Here we can usefully distinguish at least three
different kinds of parental interests which could ground parental
rights to control aspects of their children's lives: interests
in being a fiduciary, interests in intimacy, and interests in
"nurturing, counseling, and education." Intimacy and being
a fiduciary, which Brighouse and Swift appeal to, arguably need not be
undermined by intervention - whereas an interest in
authentically nurturing children into adults might (Altman 2018).



The parental-interest account of parents' rights addresses
problems raised within political philosophy for the family. Brighouse
and Swift generate their account partly in response to the challenge
of redistribution of children: if the state should promote child
welfare, why should children not be redistributed at birth to the best
prospective parents, to maximize children's welfare? But as
Gheaus points out, while Brighouse and Swift provide an account of
fundamental parental rights, they do not explain why biological
parents have rights to rear their biological children, rather than
such children being redistributed to better prospective parents, who
could thereby undertake their own parenting projects (Gheaus 2012).
One response to this concern is to separate the question of how
someone obtains parental rights (the topic of the previous section)
from the question of whose interests--parent, child, or
both--those rights ultimately protect (Millum 2017). Brighouse
and Swift also aim to address the family's notorious effect on
equal opportunity - different parenting practices, such as
reading bedtime stories, can greatly affect children's life
chances. On their account, certain inequality-producing institutions
such as private schools and inheritances are not protected under
parents' rights - but practices essential to
parents' interest in intimacy, such as bedtime stories, are.
(For a reply, see Engster 2019.) Finally, a dual-interest view,
grounding rights in interests of both parents and children, is also
possible (Macleod 2015).



One question concerning parental rights is their strength. Parental
rights entitle parents to exclude others, including the state, from
child-rearing decisions. For critics, the absolute exclusivity typical
of contemporary western nuclear families gives parents too much power
over the vulnerable children in their care (Card 1996, Gheaus 2011;
see also Gheaus 2018b).



An important set of questions about the content of parental rights
concerns their scope. While it is widely agreed that parents have
rights to make many day-to-day decisions on behalf of their children,
a number of purported rights have been questioned.



One controversial right is the right to infuse children with
parents' religious beliefs. On the one hand, handing down such
beliefs to children is, to many, a key aspect of the parental project
(Brighouse and Swift 2006, 2014; Galston 2011). On the other hand,
Clayton argues that raising one's child in a religion violates a
requirement of liberal neutrality, which applies to parents just as it
applies to states (Clayton 2006; also Coleman 2003). From a feminist
perspective, Okin argued that religious infusion could affect
girls' developing self-respect and equal opportunity (Okin 1994;
cf. Chambers 2017, Chapter 6; Schouten 2017). Even if such arguments
theoretically justify state intervention, their proponents must
explain how, in practice, the state could intervene in the intimate
parent-child relationship without psychologically harming
children.



Another set of questions concerns parental authority over medical
interventions. Critics have argued that circumcision of male children
violates their bodily integrity; but children's rights to bodily
integrity must be weighed against other morally weighty interests,
including the child's own interest in community membership
(Benatar and Benatar 2003, Mazor 2019). Likewise, there is controversy
over whether parents should have the right to prevent transgender
adolescents from receiving puberty-blocking treatment; here, harm to
transgender children must be weighed (Priest 2019). In such conflicts,
there are tensions between parental control rights and
children's rights, but also between different understandings of
what the child's best interests require (particularly when the
child lacks decision-making capacity). (See entry on
 children's rights.)



A related debate concerns the authority of parents to control their
child's education. Most discussion of this issue has focused on
religion-based objections to the duration or content of public
schooling. This was the context in which Feinberg originally discussed
the child's "right to an open future," which he
regards as a constraint on parental discretion regarding their
child's schooling (1980, see below for further discussion). A
key challenge is how to justify these objections. One strategy is to
cite the parents' right to freedom of religion, but then some
argument must be given for why the apparent interests of a child in
being educated should be sacrificed to their religious freedom. A
separate question regarding parental rights and education is whether
parents are ethically permitted to confer advantages on their children
through private schooling, particularly when doing so is expected to
reduce the quality of education available to other children (Swift
2003).



Other questions concerning parental rights concern exclusivity and the
number of possible parents. As step-parenting, procreation involving
multiple biological, gestational, and social parents, and other
diverse family forms become more prevalent, why should the number of
parents be limited to two? As noted in Section 1 above, a Canadian
court recognized a child as having three parents. Relatives in
addition to the parents are frequently involved in raising children,
even in cultures in which the nuclear family is considered the norm.
In the United States, nearly 3 million grandparents have primary
responsibility for children living in their homes and it has been
argued that grandparental rights should be legally recognized
(Henderson 2005). Further, some philosophers have argued for legal
recognition or support for non-parental care, as in, for example,
African-American practices of "othermothering" or
"revolutionary parenting." This would permit more adults
to contribute to children's development, thereby arguably
benefiting children (Card 1996; Gheaus 2011 and 2019; hooks 1984;
Collins 1991; Mullin 2005; see also
 3.5
 above).



So far, we have considered parental rights as parents' moral and
legal claims to make, and exclude others from, decisions regarding
their child. But some philosophers have argued for other rights held
by parents--namely, positive rights to social support for
child-rearing. These proposals are discussed in 5.2, as they aim at
helping parents discharge their responsibilities.


### 5.2 Parental Responsibilities



Parenthood inhabits the intersection of two distinct relationships: a
custodial relationship between parent and child, and a trustee
relationship between the parents and the larger society or other
collective. Both may generate responsibilities.



The custodial relationship involves a set of duties aimed at, and
justified by, the welfare of the child. As custodian, the parent is
under a limited obligation to work for and organize his or her life
around the welfare and development of the child, for the child's
sake. Analysis of the content of parental responsibilities has
therefore mostly focused on the rights of the child. Feinberg's
right to an "open future" can be read as a limit on
parental discretion (see 5.1). It can also be interpreted as giving
children positive claims to certain goods, such as an education that
leaves them with a wide range of valuable life plans to choose from.
Whether there is such a positive right and in what it consists are
matters of dispute (Liao 2015; Mills 2003; Lotz 2006 and 2014; Millum
2014; essays in Archard and Macleod 2002; entry on
 children's rights).
 Another question is whether parental responsibilities end when the
child reaches adulthood, or whether they are lifelong (Weinberg
2018).



Societies, families, and cultural groups also have interests in the
welfare of children. For instance, the state has an interest in the
reproduction of its workforce and its citizens; hence parental
decisions that threaten the child's chances of becoming a fully
participating citizen may come under special state scrutiny. Distinct
groups, such as the state and cultural groups, may make conflicting
claims on the parents as trustees. For instance, in order to promote
culturally prescribed norms, parents might seek to remove their child
from school, or have their daughter undergo clitoridectomy; yet the
state may claim that such a decision violates the parents'
trustee relationship on grounds that the state has a compelling
interest in securing the full citizenship capacities and rights of its
citizens (Galston 1995; Okin 1989; Chambers 2017, Chapter 6).
Moreover, discharging parental responsibilities must be balanced with
discharging obligations of distributive and global justice (Archard
and Macleod 2002, Part III; Macleod 2010).



Indeed, some philosophers argue that parental responsibilities include
duties towards social or environmental justice. For example, parents
arguably have a duty of egalitarian justice to guide their children
away from "expensive consumption habits" (Zwarthoed 2017).
They may, as parents, have duties to address climate change, on behalf
of their children's, or children's children's,
interests (Cripps 2017; see also Gheaus 2016a, 2019). This may also
apply to special duties of adoptive parents, especially in
inter-racial adoptions (Haslanger and Witt 2006, see also Baylis and
McLeod 2014).



All parents fail to meet their responsibilities at some point. We
would not expect someone to raise a child without making mistakes
along the way. However, at some point, excusable parental failings
shade into neglect and abuse. Exactly what counts as child abuse is a
matter for debate. However, if abuse marks a threshold above which it
is permissible for others--particularly the state--to
intervene, then a clear definition is needed (Archard 2004, chap.
14).



By the time neglect or abuse has reached the point that the state
intervenes, irreparable damage has often been caused, and the actions
that can be taken to improve a child's situation are likely to
be limited. Some philosophers argue that prospective parents should be
screened ahead of time for their ability to parent and those who are
deemed unlikely to be able to fulfill their parental responsibilities
should not be granted parental licenses. The argument in favor of
licensing parents may appeal primarily to the harms to children that
occur if unfit people are allowed to parent (LaFollette 1980, 2010) or
to the wider impact on society from rearing children who are unlikely
to become good citizens (McFall 2009). Either way proposals for
parental licensing schemes must show that it is possible prospectively
to identify individuals who are likely to be neglectful or abusive
parents with sufficient accuracy, show that the schemes do not violate
the rights of prospective parents (on this see Liao 2015), and explain
how they are to be enforced. The latter is perhaps the hardest
challenge: without resorting to compulsory sterilization how can
people be prevented from having children without licenses? (McFall
2009, 122) Of course, there could be penalties for unlicensed parents,
or their children could be subject to confiscation, but such policies
risk inadvertently penalizing the children they were intended to
assist. Moreover, enforcement would disproportionately burden women.
As gestators, women might be subjected to de facto forced abortions;
women are also more likely to be primary caregivers, and thus
subjected to greater interference and monitoring (Engster 2010). A
further question is whether onerous licensing policies for adoptive
parents can be justified in the absence of more general parental
licensing schemes (McLeod and Botterell 2014).



Finally, children need a great deal of care if they are to grow up
into autonomous, healthy adults and good citizens. Parents clearly
have the responsibility to provide some of this care, and the state
has the obligation to step in when parents are failing to do as they
should. However, there is an open question about what the state should
provide in cases that do not involve abuse or neglect. As Alstott has
argued, parenting imposes opportunity costs on parents, for example,
in earning potential. Moreover, child-care labor remains
gender-structured, with women performing by far the greater share. On
these grounds Alstott argues for caregiver accounts to ensure equal
opportunity, for example, allocating educational funds to parents
(Alstott 2004). One pertinent question is whether parenting should be
considered a private good, like an expensive taste which it would be
unjust for society to subsidize (Taylor 2009). Some have responded
that it is a matter of justice due to its effects on equal opportunity
for women and full participation of women as equal citizens (Okin
1989; Kittay 1999; Schouten 2019). Others have argued for collective
social responsibility for children on grounds such as children's
welfare and their status as a public good, providing positive
externalities by reproducing society and producing workers who will
support the current generation in old age (George 1987; Archard 2004;
Engster 2010; Olsaretti 2013; Millum 2017).