The ethics of parenthood and procreation apply not only to daily actsof decision-making by parents and prospective procreators, but also tolaw, public policy, and medicine. Two recent social and technologicalshifts make this topic especially pressing. First, changing familydemographics mean that children are increasingly reared in blendedfamilies, by single parents, or by same-sex partners, promptingquestions of who should be considered a child’s parent and whatgood parenting requires. Second, the development and proliferation of“Assisted Reproductive Technology” (ART) raises questionsconcerning access to the technology, its permissibility, and its useto enhance future children or prevent the birth of children withcertain conditions. Recent debate in ethics and political philosophyhas focused on the following questions:

• Are there any procreative rights? If so, what are they? What, ifanything, limits them? When, if at all, is it morally permissible toprocreate? What may procreators permissibly aim at in choosingcharacteristics of potential children? What are the moral constraintson the means of procreation?
• What are the grounds of parenthood? In what respects is parenthooda biological or natural relationship, and in what respects a social orconventional one? How should legal institutions frame parenthood?
• What are the scope and limits of parental rights andresponsibilities? What must parents provide for their children? Whatshould parents be allowed to do, and when may, or must, publicagencies intervene? What, if anything, does society owe parents?

In the following entry, we divide these questions into threesequential stages: the ethics of procreation (creating a child), towhich we devote two sections, and then becoming parents (acquiringparental rights and responsibilities) and being parents (holding anddischarging parental rights and responsibilities).

• 1. Foundations
• 2. The Morality of Procreation: Whether to Procreate
  • 2.1 The Non-Identity Problem and Impersonal Considerations
  • 2.2 Anti-Natalism
  • 2.3 Procreative Autonomy
  • 2.4 A Right Not to Procreate?
  • 2.5 A Duty to Adopt?
• 3. The Morality of Procreation: How to Procreate
  • 3.1 Assisted Reproductive Technologies
  • 3.2 “Surrogacy” and Contractually Assisted Reproduction
  • 3.3 Enhancement
  • 3.4 Institutional Policies and Justice
• 4. Becoming Parents
  • 4.1 Genetic accounts
  • 4.2 Labor-Based accounts
  • 4.3 Intentional and Voluntarist Accounts
  • 4.4 Causal Accounts
  • 4.5 Child-Centred Accounts
  • 4.6 Institutional Frameworks: Family, Adoption, Licensing
• 5. Being Parents
  • 5.1 Parental Rights
  • 5.2 Parental Responsibilities
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Foundations

A parent is someone with weighty rights and responsibilities regardinga given child. Parents usually have decision-making rights over mostareas of their child’s life and rights to exclude others frommaking such decisions. So long as parents fulfill requirements tonourish, educate, and provide healthcare for their children, they maymake 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 andresponsibilities.

“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, modernreproductive technology complicates it, as a child can have geneticparents (gamete providers, who supply the sperm or egg) and anadditional 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 whichthe nucleus of a fertilized egg is transferred to a second egg formedical reasons, introduces further complications, as additionalgenetic material—mitochondrial DNA—is supplied by thedonor egg cell.

Biological parents are commonly distinguished from social parents, whorear the child and are perceived as responsible for it. Adoptiveparents, or parents who rear children created with donated gametes andgestated by a third party, are social, but not biological, parents.Moreover, biological parents need not be social parents, as biologicalparents give up children for adoption, donate gametes, or work asgestational parents. The category of social parent presents borderlinecases when a given community does not socially recognize those rearinga child as parents. This might occur with a mother’s unmarriedpartner, two friends rearing children together, other relatives likegrandparents rearing the child, or when a community participates inchild-rearing. Legal and moral criteria for the acquisition ofparental rights and responsibilities should clearly designate whomsociety should recognize as having them.

Legal parenthood consists in possessing legal parental rights andresponsibilities. Historically, in the US, a pregnant woman’shusband has been presumed to be her child’s legal father:marriage, not biology, underpins the legal relation. This has facedlegal challenges from genetic fathers (Rosenman 1995; see Hubin 2003on fatherhood). Law in different jurisdictions is increasinglyrecognizing legal parental rights on the basis of same-sex marriage.The rise of ART has prompted many questions regarding assignment oflegal parenthood when there are contending claims—as between acouple who commissioned a contract pregnancy and the gestationalparent. They have also stretched the understanding of parenthood, aswhen the Ontario Court of Appeal recognized three legal parents(A.A. v. B.B., 2007 ONCA 2)—a lesbian couple and asperm donor. The wider use of ART and gamete donation, along withbroader recognition of same-sex marriage and changing social attitudestowards polyamory, have led some philosophers to argue for rethinkingthe family to include more than two social and legal parents, ongrounds including child welfare, social justice, and environmentalimpact (see, e.g., Cutas 2011, Shrage 2018, Gheaus 2019, Grill2020).

Legal, social, and biological parenthood can be conceptuallydistinguished; however, parenthood is arguably fundamentally a moralrelationship, and its moral grounds and obligations should beconsidered in resolving the borderline cases. Moral parenthood ispossession of moral parental rights and responsibilities. These maydiffer in content from legal rights and responsibilities—wemight think parents morally ought to do more than they are legallyrequired to do, for example. The moral grounds for assigning parentalrights can also differ from their legal assignment. Of course, legalassignment of parenthood may trigger moral obligations, due to ageneral moral obligation to obey the law or because the legal parentis best-placed to rear the child. But moral theories of parenthoodgive independent grounds for parental rights, on the basis of whichparticular legal arrangements may be criticized.

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

2. The Morality of Procreation: Whether to Procreate

For the most part, secular debates about the morality of procreationfocus on whether and when procreation is impermissible, rather thanwhether it might be obligatory (though see Smilansky 1995 and Gheaus2015 on whether there could be a duty to procreate). The debatesconcerning the impermissibility of procreation raise deep issues inmetaphysics and value theory (Belshaw 2003; Holtug 2001; Kavka 1982;Rachels 1998). We restrict our discussion to moral issues rather thanlegal ones, and assume throughout that reproduction is fully voluntaryand informed—that is, neither coerced nor accidental.

2.1 The Non-Identity Problem and Impersonal Considerations

It might be hoped that we could give a full account of permissibleprocreation by appealing only to the interests of the individualsaffected by procreative decisions. Unfortunately, there is reason tothink that this may not be possible. Consider the following sort ofcase, introduced into the literature by Parfit (1984), and known asthe non-identity problem (entry onthe nonidentity problem):

Marie is taking a drug that she knows will cause a birthdefect—say, a withered arm—in any child that she conceives(call this child “Amy”). In 3 months this drug will havepassed from her body, and she will be able to conceive a child freefrom this defect (call this child “Sophie”). Intuitively,Marie does something wrong in deciding to have Amy rather thanSophie.

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

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

Assume, plausibly, that Amy and Aarav have lives that are worthliving. Does Marie do something wrong in conceiving and giving birthto Amy? Does Sri do something wrong conceiving and giving birth toAarav? Many are inclined to think that they do, but it is unclear howwe can capture this wrongness by appeal only to the interests of theindividuals involved. This is because wronging someone seems topresuppose 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 doingotherwise would have entailed creating no one. Her action has novictim and therefore sets back no one’s interests. Amyisn’t made worse off by Marie’s actions, for had Mariewaited another three months before conceiving she would have givenbirth to a different child (Sophie) instead of Amy. It is thereforedifficult to see how Marie might have harmed or wronged Amy.

It is also prima facie implausible that the interests of other partiesexplain why these actions would be wrong: they are wanted and theirbirths don’t harm their community.
The non-identity problem is not solely a problem for the morality ofprocreation. Anyone who affects the welfare of future people inidentity-affecting ways may face it. Readers interested in generalapproaches to the non-identity problem should consult the relevantentry. Here we discuss just those aspects bearing on the ethics ofbecoming parents (see also Hanser 1990; Vehmas 2002).

Feinberg (1992) compares situations like the Marie and Sri cases withcases in which someone is harmed in the course of being saved from agreater 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 thatit is a necessary condition of a greater good—in the one casesaving a person’s life, in the other case bringing a life intoexistence. Shiffrin (1999), however, holds that harming someone tosave them from a greater harm is morally distinct from harming them toimpose a “pure benefit” on them. Shiffrin claims that wehave serious qualms about harming someone without their consent tosecure a pure benefit for them, even when we can be sure that theywould regard the pure benefit as far outweighing the harm (see alsoSteinbock and McClamrock 1994). She concludes that procreation isroutinely more morally problematic than is generally recognized.

Shiffrin’s attempt to drive a wedge into Feinberg’sanalogy raises questions of its own. First, one might challenge theassumption that life is a pure benefit. Even if we assume thatAmy’s life would be worth living, creating her would be abenefit only on a rather peculiar conception of what a“benefit” entails. Amy is not better off than sheotherwise would have been, for there is no way that she otherwisewould have been. Furthermore, the argument may prove too much. If oneis never justified in harming someone (without their consent) toimpose a pure benefit on them, and if existence always involves someform of harm, then it must always be wrong to bring someone intoexistence. A global form of anti-natalism (seeSection 2.2) thereby seems to be the price of this solution to the non-identityproblem.

A number of authors, including Parfit, argue that we need to appeal toimpersonal considerations to solve the non-identity problem. Severalof these solutions appeal to the role morality of parents. Accordingto Freeman, “The principle of parental responsibility requiresthat individuals should desist from having children unless certainminimum conditions can be satisfied. Responsible parents want theirchildren to have good and fulfilling lives” (1997, 180). Freemangoes on to claim that the principle of parental responsibility entailsthat the very young and very old should not become parents. Similarly,Purdy claims that one shouldn’t reproduce unless one can ensurethat one’s children will have a decent life, with clean water,nutritious food, shelter, education, and medical care counting asbasic prerequisites (Purdy 1995). Purdy’s position seems toimply that many—even most—of the world’s childrenhave been wrongly brought into existence. Wasserman argues thatwhether it is permissible to bring a child into existence with certaincharacteristics (such as impairments), depends on the reasons theprospective parents have for creating such a child. These should bereasons that concern the good of the child, which can still supportcreating a child whose life will predictably go worse than that ofanother child who could be created instead (Wasserman 2005; compareStramondo 2017). Others have taken similar reasoning to show thatprospective parents can be morally criticized for their attitudes tofuture children, such that the desire to have a child with a harmfulcondition is wrongful (Kahane 2009).

Not all of those who have written on the non-identity problem acceptthat Marie does wrong in deciding to have Amy rather than Sophie, orthat Sri does wrong in reproducing. Indeed, some find the suggestionthat it is wrong to (knowingly) bring disabled children into the worldabhorrent due to the implications of such views for individuals withdisabilities. Asch holds that a woman has a right to an abortion, butalso that it would be wrong to have an abortion to prevent the birthof a disabled child. Abortion on such grounds is immoral, she argues,because it communicates that “disability is so terrible itwarrants not being alive” (Asch 1999, 387). The argument couldeasily be extended to decisions about whether to conceive a certaintype of child. Does prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion, orpreimplantation genetic diagnosis, communicate that disability is soterrible it warrants not being alive? On its face this claim iscontestable; the associated decisions are highly specific to eachcase. And even if such acts did communicate something, it is unclearthat it would be a thesis about relative qualities of life (see alsoBuchanan et al. 2000, chap. 7). For more discussion of the ethics ofcreating people with disabilities see encyclopedia article ondisability: health, well-being, and personal relationships.

2.2 Anti-Natalism

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 somiserable as to be not worth living, it may be argued that procreationwould be wrongful. Whether there are such lives—and if so, whatcharacterizes them—is controversial, but it is not unreasonableto suppose that a life can be so irremediably miserable that it is ofno benefit to the individual who endures it. Arguably, the lives ofthose born with Tay-Sachs disease fit this description, and many arguethat it is immoral to knowingly bring such children into the world.Some authors go much further than this, arguing that procreating iswrong unless the parent has reason to think he or she can provide thechild with a good chance of a normal life. The general claim is thatcertain types of individuals have an interest in not being broughtinto existence on account of the quality of life they would have werethey created (McMahon 1998; Roberts 1998). ARTs allowingpost-menopausal women to give birth have prompted objections topost-menopausal motherhood on grounds of child welfare; but sucharguments seem to employ double standards (Cutas 2007). Cassidy holdsthat prospective parents who believe they will not be sufficientlycompetent should not procreate (Cassidy 2006). Relatedly, Benatarargues that autonomy rights cannot permit risking severe harm tochildren; those who risk transmitting HIV, for instance, cannot asserta right to reproduce (Benatar 2010). Local anti-natalism is alsosupported by the judgment that wrongful birth, birth which wrongfullyimposes undue risk and harm on a resulting child, is possible(Shiffrin 1999).

Global anti-natalism opposes procreation in general. One globalanti-natalist position holds that in all cases procreation is a harmto those brought into being. Benatar argues that while existencebrings pains as well as pleasures, non-existence is a lack of painsand pleasures. While pain is bad, absence of pain and pleasure is notbad, so it is always worse to be than not to be (Benatar 1997, 2006;see also discussion of Shiffrin 1999, below; for responses, seeOverall 2012, Benatar and Wasserman 2015). Other global anti-natalistpositions focus on harms or costs to others. An environmentalistanti-natalism argues that procreation is wrong for the same reasonsoverconsumption is (Young 2001, MacIver 2015, Hedberg 2020) –although this position has been charged with "double-counting"emissions by attributing children’s emissions to their parents(Grill 2023, Pinkert and Sticker 2020; see also Cavaliere 2020, Vance2023). An opportunity-cost anti-natalism argues that the money spenton rearing a child would be better spent on ameliorating the lives ofthose already existing (Rachels 2014). And a misanthropicanti-natalism argues that humans cause so much harm – to otherhumans, non-human animals, and the environment – that there is aduty not to procreate (Benatar 2015). Others have argued that theavailability of children needing homes creates strong moral reasons toadopt rather than to procreate (seeSection 2.5). There are also intermediate positions. For example, Sarah Conlyargues that the interests that ground a right to procreate can besatisfied with only one child and so it may be permissible to restrictthe number of children an individual creates when costs to thirdparties from overpopulation are substantial (Conly 2005, 2016; seealso Finneron-Burns 2024, Pinkert and Sticker 2025, Statman 2005).

Note that anti-natalists do not always defend legal restrictions,because interfering with procreation may involve intolerably illiberalcoercion of the person. Even those who do think that there arecircumstances in which interference with procreation can be justifiedaccept that there are important countervailing values. For example,Benatar notes that the moral costs of forced abortion or sterilizationare “immense,” but thinks that the moral costs of moderatecoercion or directive counseling should be weighed against the moralcosts of harm to future children (Benatar 2010; see also thediscussion of parental licensing inSection 4.6).

One response to anti-natalist views is to provide a justification forthe decision to procreate. Some authors, agreeing that procreationrequires a justification and that many common reasons for procreatingcarry no moral weight, locate a possible justification in the uniquenature of the parent-child relationship, the desire for pregnancy, orthe desire to pass on valuable family traits (Overall 2012, Rulli2016, Brake 2015, Ferracioli 2018; on whether one can make a rationaldecision to have a child, see Paul 2015 and Krishnamurthy 2015). Formany, procreation is an exercise of procreative autonomy whichrequires no special justification.

2.3 Procreative Autonomy

20^th-century international human rights documentsexplicitly codify the right “to marry and found a family”(United Nations 1948, Article 16), and thus some writers argue thatliberal constitutions implicitly enshrine a right to procreate (Hill1991). A right to procreate could be construed negatively orpositively. As a negative right, it would be a right against coerciveinterference 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 onprocreative autonomy are not independent of positions on abortion, theextensive philosophical debate about abortion must be dealt withindependently (see the entries onthe ethics of abortion andfeminist perspectives on reproduction and the family). The issue of contraception can be touched on briefly here. While somereligious views oppose contraception, this position is not widelydefended in philosophical ethics. However, philosophical debate hasrecently emerged over “conscientious objections” bypharmacists. In some jurisdictions, pharmacists opposing abortion havea legal right to refuse to dispense emergency contraception, on the(medically controversial) basis that it acts as an abortifacient. Thisright has been defended on the grounds that pharmacists’ freedomof conscience outweighs the inconvenience to women (if they can obtainthe drug elsewhere). Others have argued that such refusals constituteserious harms to women, not mere inconveniences, and that similarobjections would not be permitted in non-procreative cases, such as avegetarian pharmacist who refused to dispense materials tested onanimals (LaFollette and LaFollette 2007; Fenton and Lomasky 2005;McLeod 2010; Kelleher 2010; McLeod 2020).

A negative moral right to procreate—also sometimes referred toas “reproductive liberty” or “procreativeliberty”—may be grounded in autonomy rights to controlone’s body and make certain important decisions for oneself(Dworkin 1993). Violations could involve direct physical coercion suchas rape or forced abortion or sterilization, or coercive interferencewith decisions regarding sexual activity or contraception. Involuntaryphysical interventions such as forced contraception, sterilization, orabortion have been practiced as part of eugenic movements or forpopulation control in many countries. Their wrongness is now widelyacknowledged, but critics see continuity between such racist policiesand contemporary moderately coercive policies such as makingcontraceptive implants the condition of medical aid for impoverishedwomen, particularly for women of color (see Roberts 1997).

A right to procreate may also be grounded in the strong interestpeople have in creating a child, giving birth, and parenting(Robertson 1994). Because this justification does not concern a rightto use one’s body, but to realize the important interest increating and rearing a child, it can be taken to imply a positive (aswell as a negative) right to procreate. Such a positive right couldalso entail a claim to sufficient environmental resources to raisechildren justly (Davis 2024; Gheaus 2016a; Roberts 2015; Silliman etal. 2016) or to funding for ART (Robertson 1994). Given that adistinct right to parent could be met through adoption, some suggestthat financial barriers to ART where children are available foradoption would be justified (De Wispelaere and Weinstock 2014). Othershave criticized the way that focusing on a right to procreateperpetuates the “biogenetic bias” that favors genetic tiesover social ones (Boucai 2016) or challenged the idea that the valueof establishing a parenting relationship can ground a right to createsomeone with the special vulnerabilities of children to their parents(Hannan and Leland 2018). A right to procreate could also be limitedby reasons for procreation; for example, is creating a ‘saviorsibling’ to serve as a donor for an existing child animpermissible use of procreative capacities? (Althorpe andFinneron-Burns 2023; see also Overall 2012)

Liberal theory has tended to support some sort of right to procreativeautonomy. At its most extreme, the liberal approach focused onindividual choice opposes regulations on reproductive decisions andART unless they can be shown to threaten harm to others. This approachto protecting individual procreative choice is grounded in the valuesof individual equality and autonomy (Feinberg 1986; Dworkin 1993). Thebasic thought is that interfering in procreation involves illiberalinterference with the person and their choices. Further, some authorshold that ART ought to be universally available provided it does notharm others, because any restrictions would constitute unequaltreatment of those who cannot conceive through sexual intercourse(whether due to infertility or because they do not form a“traditional” family) (Harris 1998).

Some defenders of procreative autonomy focused on individual choicehave been concerned to show that assumptions about the inherentwrongness or harmfulness of ART are not justified. In particular, theyhave argued that conservative opposition to cloning, geneticselection, surrogacy, and harvesting fetal ovarian tissue is based inundefended traditionalism (Harris 1998; cf. Glover 1998; Buchanan etal. 2000, chap. 2).

By contrast, communitarian conservative approaches to procreativeliberty tend to regard procreation as part of a web of practices thatgain their meaning and value from being part of a comprehensive way oflife. Efforts to increase procreative autonomy—particularlythrough biotechnology—risk meddling with such ways of life(Sandel 2007). Thus, communitarian conservatives view ART withsuspicion. The 20^th-century record of Nazi“eugenics” programs, forced abortion as apopulation-control mechanism, and widespread nonconsensualsterilization in many countries, including the United States, isadduced as support for pessimism about technological, policy-driven,or self-indulgent interventions in procreation (Meilaender 1987).

Some philosophers argue for limiting the moral right to procreate tomarried or long-term male-female couples on harm-based grounds (Almond2006). Some claim that same-sex and single parenting harm children.While the empirical debate cannot be addressed here, there seems to bea lack of evidence that same-sex parenting harms children. Forexample, an American Sociological Association review found a“clear consensus in the social science literature” thatchildren of same-sex parents are no worse off than children ofdifferent-sex parents (see Manning et al., 2014). In any case, sinceevidence suggests that high-conflict families or divorce can harmchildren, such arguments risk inconsistency if not applied tomale-female couples at risk of divorce or sub-par parenting.

Feminist perspectives on procreative autonomy are diverse, but theyshare a commitment to opposing patriarchy and promoting people’s(particularly women’s) abilities to determine the shape of theirown lives, where this includes sexual and reproductive autonomy. Whilesome feminists also take communitarian, individual choice-focused, ormore nuanced liberal perspectives, other feminists criticize thoseapproaches. Much feminist work begins with women’s embodiedexperience in pregnancy, as caregivers, and as subject to distinct,gendered, social and economic pressures (Mullin 2005; Satz 2010;Gheaus 2016b). One general theme of feminist criticism of mainstreamprocreative ethics, then, is that it often employs abstractions whichobscure the impact of policies on women’s bodies, as well as thereal-world context of socio-economic pressures (Overall 2012). Forexample, some feminists have raised the concern that a positive rightto procreate threatens to give men power over women; such a rightcould empower a man to prevent someone impregnated with his geneticmaterial from aborting her pregnancy (Overall 1993).

Feminist critiques of the concept of procreative autonomy asmisleading or empty rhetoric reflect a larger feminist projectcritical of autonomy construed as individual choice. Within aninegalitarian social and economic system, some feminists argue,pressures on choice will ensure that supposedly free choicesdisadvantage women (Dodds and Jones, 1989a). This is particularlyproblematic when the medical establishment presents burdensometechnologies as the expected norm. Choices are shaped by the salientalternatives, so that the widespread adoption of new medicaltechnologies will affect women’s choices (as the normalizationof testing for Down syndrome shapes women’s choice to undergosuch testing). The point is not that adopting new technology is alwaysproblematic, but that the individual choice framework for evaluatingit is naïve and misleading (Sherwin 1992; see alsoSection 3.4). These concerns extend to the way in which reproductive policy andtechnologies shape, and are shaped by, race as well as gender (Roberts1997; Russell 2018). For these reasons, Roberts has developed a‘reproductive justice’ framework to replace the individualchoice-focused procreative autonomy model. State-sponsored programshave included forced sterilization as well as legal incentives forpoor women not to procreate—both instances of reproductiveinjustice disproportionately affecting women of color. Withthis in view, reproductive justice includes attention to howbackground pressures on choice, as well as access to resources, healthcare, and safe environments, support or diminish people’sability to have and to rear children—paying special attention toimpacts which disproportionately affect certain groups, such aslow-income women of color (Roberts 1997; see also Davis 2024).

Feminist accounts of relational autonomy emphasize that autonomousdecision-making depends on certain social supports. Trans pregnancy isan example of this: Mullin argues that supporting the autonomy ofpregnant trans and gender-diverse people requires that health carepractitioners be informed about and affirming of diverse genderidentities (Mullin 2025).

A further feminist concern is that the rhetoric surroundingreproductive biotechnology commodifies women’s bodies, devalueswomen’s role in reproduction, and treats women as mere meansrather than ends in themselves. For instance, some reproductiveservices entail so-called “womb rental,” “eggharvesting,” or “surrogate motherhood” (Rothman1989; Ber 2000; Anderson 1990; Baron 2019). Feminists such as Brazierargue that the reproductive biotechnology establishment relies on adistorted and stereotyped picture of the nature, desires, and needs ofwomen, as well as the success rate of the technologies it purveys, andthat these technologies result in physical harms to women (Brazier1998).

By conceptualizing women and their fetuses or newborns as havingconflicting interests, rather than as in symbiotic harmony (as theyusually are), the medical establishment promotes an adversarial viewwhich lends itself to overriding pregnant women’s treatmentdecisions. Such interventions, such as court-ordered C-sections, areespecially problematic when similar interventions would not be imposedon parents to save a born child’s life (such as a court-orderedblood transfusion); this inconsistency suggests a bias againstpregnant women’s decision-making capacity. Understandings ofpregnancy and motherhood, feminists argue, need to be enriched byconsidering women’s experience of pregnancy and moving away froman antagonistic medical model, as well as appreciating how that modelhas been socially constructed (Purdy 1990; Kukla 2005; Mullin2005).

Feminist care ethics, which early on took the mother-childrelationship as the model of caring (e.g., Held 1987), has provided arich conceptual resource for feminist procreative ethics. Theinfluence of care ethics can be seen, for example, in arguments whichforeground the value of intimate mother-fetus relationships inexamining the moral basis of parenthood and the legitimacy of contractpregnancy (e.g., Gheaus 2016b).

2.4 A Right Not to Procreate?

While we have set aside the question of abortion, we will brieflyaddress two other cases in which avoiding procreation and parenthoodhas been taken as protected by procreative autonomy. First is the caseof legal paternity assignment for the purposes of child support,particularly in the case of “involuntary fathers.” Secondis the case of the disposition of frozen embryos created from thegametes of two people who now disagree on their use. We can usefullydistinguish rights not to become a gestational parent, not to become alegal parent, and not to become a genetic parent (Cohen 2007, 1140).The cases we are concerned with in this section relate to the twolatter (alleged) rights: not to become a legal or a geneticparent.

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 feministdefenses of procreative autonomy. What is at issue here is not whetheran unwilling father has the right to compel a pregnant woman to havean abortion – this would be an intolerable invasion of herprocreative autonomy – but whether he should be assigned thelegal status, and legal support obligations, of fatherhood. If womenhave the right to avoid the status and burdens of motherhood, byparity of reasoning – the argument goes – men should havethe right to avoid the status and burdens of fatherhood. Of course,the physical burdens of pregnancy provide a clear disanalogy betweenthe cases (for related legal arguments against arguing from abortioncases to genetic parenthood cases, see Cohen 2007). But dismissing thecomparison too quickly risks inattention to the costs of “forcedfatherhood” on worse-off men (and their disproportionateenforcement on men of color in the US) (Brake 2005). Some would arguethat even if men have the right to avoid involuntary fatherhood insome cases, the claims of children outweigh a right not to become aparent (Overall 2012).

Cases of dispute over frozen embryos, such asEvans v. the UnitedKingdom, foreground issues of privacy and control overone’s genetic material – especially, whether there is aright not to become a genetic parent (again, here we set aside thequestion of the moral status of the embryo). In theEvanscase, a couple produced embryos through IVF, intending to procreatetogether, 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 tocontinue. The woman brought a legal challenge, hoping to proceed withimplantation.

Considerations of procreative autonomy, control of one’s geneticmaterial, could be brought to bear on either side here. Is there aright not to become a genetic parent, and if so, does it override anyother rights or moral considerations pertinent to such disagreements?A right not to become a genetic parent could be grounded in privacy orproperty rights in one’s genetic material (includinginformational). But once the embryo is intentionally created with theconsent of the gamete donor, it may be argued that any prior propertyclaims are ceded; the genetic contribution cannot be retrieved fromthis “miscible joint property” (Chan and Quigley 2007; seealso Cohen 2007). On one feminist perspective, the woman who hasundergone IVF ought to control the embryos, because of the additionalburdens of the procedure and any future treatments on her (Overall1995).

The resolution to these questions depends, at least in part, on theunderlying moral grounds of parenthood. For example, if one acquiresparental moral obligations by causing a child to exist, that will havevery different implications than if one only acquires such obligationsthrough a voluntary undertaking.Section 3 examines such accounts of the moral grounds of parenthood.

2.5 A Duty to Adopt?

A growing literature concerns the question of whether people who wantto parent have a duty to adopt rather than procreate (Petersen 2002;Friedrich 2013; Rulli 2014; Rieder 2015). Proponents of the duty makeboth a negative case against procreating rather than adopting and apositive case in favor of adopting. Negatively, we have already seenvarious anti-natalist reasons against procreating (Section 2.2), including the environmental impact of adding more people to analready overcrowded planet. Creating new people, it is argued, is notmorally important even if those people are expected to leadflourishing lives. One might respond that it is valuable for theprospective parents if they get to make a child – procreationcontributes totheir flourishing. However, proponents of theduty to adopt argue, the central goods of parenting can all beaccessed by adopting. It is no better to parent a genetically relatedchild than to parent one who has no biological connection to theirparents (Rulli 2016).

The positive case focuses on the plight of children in need ofadoption. Around the world, there are millions of children living ininstitutions who lack stable home environments with dedicated, lovingcaregivers (UNICEF 2021). Those children could be provided withmassive benefits by being adopted. Since, it is argued, adults whoalready want to parent would not be giving up anything morallysignificant by adopting rather than procreating, there is a duty ofbeneficence to adopt.

Various responses have been made in defense of the permissibility ofprocreating rather than adopting. Some argue that procreating and thenparenting does indeed have a unique and substantial value for would-beparents. For example, Ferracioli (2018) argues that procreating inorder to parent gives someone weighty reasons to love their child andthat the resulting parent-child bond is extremely valuable. Otherspoint out that adoptive parents may miss out on important goods thatprocreators get to experience – such as pregnancy and bondingwith a newborn (Rulli 2014; Shpall 2023).

There are also practical difficulties associated with adoption. Thoughthere may be millions of children in need of adoption, matching themwith prospective parents is not straightforward. For internationaladoptions, in particular, there have been a number of troublingreports of children who do not need adopting being taken from theircaregivers to supply a market of wealthy would-be parents (Smolin2009). Domestically, in many countries, the children most in need ofadoption tend to be those who are older, have special needs as aresult of serious health conditions, and have experienced traumaticevents that may have long-lasting effects on them (see, e.g., Home forGood [Other Internet Resources]). In many countries, adoption is alsoa lengthy and expensive process. In sum, under present circumstances,adoption is often costly in various ways for the adopting parents andthis puts pressure on the notion that they have a duty to pursue itrather than procreate (Hill 2024).

3. The Morality of Procreation: How to Procreate

3.1 Assisted Reproductive Technologies

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

Most discussion has centered on whether it is permissible forprospective parents to avail themselves of these novel technologiesfor procreation. There has also been some debate over whether peoplehave a claim to access these technologies through public health caresystems or private health insurance. Most rich countries withuniversal health care provide some treatment for infertility. Forexample, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service funds alimited number of cycles of IVF for couples who meet eligibilitycriteria. Some have questioned whether it is appropriate to fund IVFand similar interventions out of public funds (McTernan 2015; for asupportive view, see Cavaliere 2024). In this context it isparticularly important whether infertility is properly considered adisease or disability in need of treatment (Neumann 1997; McLeod2017). Another broad social concern raised by all these technologiesis their role in the reproduction of race; when such technologies areused to produce racially similar children, they may perpetuate theidea of race as natural, as opposed to a social construction (Russell2018).

Gamete donation involves the provision of gametes by a man or womanwho is not intended to be the resulting child’s social parent.Insemination by a man who will not be recognized as the child’sparent is not a new technology per se, but the modern phenomena ofsperm banking and anonymous providers have led some to question themorality of artificial insemination by donor (AID). Some objectionsclearly have a religious basis; we therefore do not discuss them here.But some conservatives about procreative liberty have developedsecular objections to gamete donation. One of these focuses on thepractice of paying gamete providers. For example, Thomas Murraycriticizes “insemination by vendor” on the grounds that itinserts the values of the marketplace into family life and therebythreatens to undermine it (Murray 1996, 34). (The process ofharvesting ova also involves serious risks to the woman providingthem, which are discussed in the description of the IVF processbelow.)

A different set of concerns centers on the moral responsibilities ofgamete providers. Since in most jurisdictions gamete providers mustwaive all parental claims over their genetic offspring, it has beenwidely assumed that they do not have moral parental responsibilities.Several philosophers have, however, argued that gamete donation ismorally dubious, precisely because providers take their parentalresponsibilities too lightly (Benatar 1999; Nelson 1991; Moschella2014). The argument can be challenged in at least two ways. First, wemight challenge the claim that gamete providers typically treat theirparental responsibilities too lightly by transferring or alienatingthem (Bayne 2003, Page 1985), especially in the case when gametedonation occurs in a context in which assisted reproduction isregulated and would-be gamete recipients are screened. Second, onecould argue that in the broad nexus of persons responsible forcreating a child through assisted reproduction, the contribution ofgamete providers is not especially morally significant (Fuscaldo2006). (See the entry ongamete donation and sale.) However, recent critics have argued that gamete donors morally cannottransfer or alienate their parental responsibilities because theseinvolve maintaining particular relationships which cannot betransferred (Weinberg 2016; see also Brandt 2017, 2021).

A distinct debate concerns the permissibility of procreating usinganonymous gamete donors. Velleman argues that this practice is wrongbecause it frustrates children’s interest in knowing theirgenetic forebears (Velleman 2005). In response, Haslanger argues thatnot only does this view make certain forms of adoption morallysuspect, it presupposes implausible connections between genetics,identity, and human flourishing (Haslanger 2009). Attempting to avoidsuch charges, Groll argues that a duty of donors to disclose theiridentity can be grounded in the significant subjective interests ofthe donor-conceived in knowing their donor, particularly as suchknowledge contributes to their self-determination (Groll 2021). Thisraises a concern, though, that such duties could extend to any closegenetic relatives (Brake and Cutas 2025). Policy debates overanonymous gamete donation have expanded to the question of whetherdonor-conceived individuals—as adults—have the right toknow who their genetic parents are (Melo‐Martín 2014;Groll 2020). Anonymous donation is now illegal in a number ofjurisdictions.

IVF is a distinct technology from gamete donation, although it can becombined with it. It involves fertilizing ova outside the womb andtransferring resulting embryos into the uterus. The woman whose ovaare used is given a hormone treatment that induces producing multipleova, which are harvested by a needle inserted through the vaginalwall. Fertilization may involve incubating the ovum in sperm orinjecting a single sperm into the ovum in intracytoplasmic sperminjection (ICSI). Several embryos are transferred into the uterusafter three to five days. Since the birth of the first“test-tube baby” in 1978, IVF has become a fairly commonprocedure for addressing certain forms of infertility.

Objections to IVF have focused on negative consequences for the womenor their offspring and on wider societal implications. Stimulation ofthe ovaries may lead to ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, apotentially serious condition. Like any surgical procedure there arerisks involved in retrieval of ova. Transferring multiple embryosincreases risk of multiple pregnancy, which can be risky for bothmother and fetuses. The absolute risk of these problems remainsrelatively low, however, and so they do not seem to justify a blanketprohibition on IVF.

Similar objections to those raised against gamete donation have alsobeen raised against IVF, including that it commodifies children andfemale 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 theproduct of problematic social arrangements and cultural values. Whilereproductive technologies like IVF may help some (privileged) womenget what they want, they also further entrench the oppressive societalvalues that create these powerful desires in the first place.

While many feminists defend the use of ART, especially as a means ofnon-traditional family-building, other feminists are skeptical of thereproductive biotechnology industry. While this industry representsitself as empowering women, many feminists charge that it succeedsonly in disempowering them: it conscripts poorer women into servicefor people who are usually wealthier; it creates new expectations thatmay subtly coerce women to pursue fertility treatments or othermedical interventions; and it inevitably reflects the cultural,economic, sexist, and racist biases of the society at large (Brazier1998; Roberts 1997, Russell 2018). Hence feminists have charged that aliberal focus on individual choice would exacerbate existing powerinequalities (Sherwin 1987, 1992; Rothman 1989; Dodds and Jones 1989a;Baron 2019).

IVF typically results in creating more embryos than are used in thefertility treatment. The remaining embryos may be given to other womenfor implantation, donated for research, destroyed, or cryogenicallystored. Depending on one’s view of the moral importance of humanembryos this may be considered an especially worrying consequence ofIVF. People who believe that such embryos have the same moral statusas humans will judge that destroying them is wrong and creating themwithout a plan for implantation is comparably bad (Shaw 2023). The useof surplus embryos as a source of totipotent stem cells for medicalresearch has generated objections from religious groups andconservatives opposed to abortion (Steinbock 2009). Consistency wouldseem to require that anyone who objects to using these embryos inresearch ought also to object to their creation in the first place,since it almost inevitably results in surplus embryos that willeventually be destroyed.

3.2 “Surrogacy” and Contractually Assisted Reproduction

Perhaps the most controversial form of assisted reproduction isso-called “surrogate” motherhood or contract pregnancy.Such arrangements can take many forms, but the most widely discussedinvolves two parties, a contracting couple and a“surrogate” or gestational mother. The gestational mothercarries a child derived from the gametes of one or both members of thecontracting couple and agrees to give the child over to the coupleafter birth. Surrogacy is now regulated in most countries. Commercialsurrogacy is widely, although not universally, illegal. Many morejurisdictions permit so-called “altruistic” surrogacy,which does not involve paying the surrogate mother over and abovecompensating her for direct costs.

Many of the disputes surrounding contract pregnancy focus on thequestion of who should be given parental rights and responsibilitiesif the arrangement breaks down. (In some cases, neither party to thearrangement wants to keep the baby; in other cases both parties wantto keep it.) Indeed, much of the impetus for recent accounts of thegrounds of parenthood has derived from attempts to adjudicate suchdisputes (Shanley 2018, and seeSection 4).

Liberals focused on individual choice insist that a right toprocreative autonomy entails protecting most methods of“collaborative reproduction,” so long as they are safe andconsensual (Robertson 1994, chap. 6). For them, the right to procreateis a special case of the right to make binding contracts (Straehle2019). But it is not settled whether such contracts ought to be legaland, if so, enforceable.

One central point of contention is whether gestational surrogacyinvolves commodification—for example, by entailing that thegestational mother is selling her baby—or whether it is nodifferent in kind from other forms of paid childcare (Anderson 1990;Glover et al. 1989; Shanley 1993; but see also Arneson 1992). It isalso disputed whether a parental right acquired through gestation canbe contractually transferred: on a gestationalist view which groundsthe right to parent in the intimate relationship between gestator andfetus, the justification of the right entails that it is not subjectto transfer (Gheaus 2016b, and see 4.2).

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

Contract pregnancy is also criticized on grounds of harm to women. Onesuch harm is that, in practice, it treats women as, and reinforces theperception of them as, mere fetal “containers” (Purdy1990, Satz 2010, Baron 2019). The fact that it gives medical staff andintending parents extensive control over women’s sexuality andtheir bodies is particularly troubling in the context of genderinequality (Satz 2010). But others reject bans on surrogacy contractsas paternalistic, unduly limiting women’s freedom (Brennan andJaworski 2022). Nevertheless, even those who defend contract pregnancyurge that safeguards, such as mandated post-natal waiting periodsduring which the gestational mother is permitted to change her mind orage-based restrictions on who may enter into such contracts, should bein place to protect the interests of the child and of the gestator(Steinbock 1988; Straehle 2016; see also Botterell and McLeod2016).

More recently, the discussion has moved to ethical analyses ofinternational surrogacy arrangements. These have typically involvedcommissioning parents from high-income countries and surrogate mothersfrom poorer populations in less wealthy countries, including India andThailand. The vast power differentials between the parties, expandedroles for surrogacy agencies brokering the arrangements, and looseregulatory regimes have made for heightened concern about exploitationand other potential wrongs (Panitch 2013, and see discussion in Purdy1989, Wilkinson 2016).

3.3 Enhancement

Some couples who undergo IVF also opt for preimplantation geneticdiagnosis (PGD) whereby the genomes of their embryos are analyzed andparticular embryos then selected for implantation. This is more commonamong couples at risk for transmitting a genetic disease or who aretrying to create a child compatible with an existing ill child so thatshe can be used as a source of donated stem cells. However, it can beused for selecting for or against other traits, such as sex, ordisability—for example, some deaf parents want to raise childrenwho inherit their deafness. Such uses of PGD are controversial (on sexselection see Heyd 2003; Robertson 2003; Purdy 2007; on selectingdeafness see Karpin 2007; Fahmy 2011; Schroeder 2018).

Current technology is mostly limited to selecting among existingembryos. However, the recent development of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editingtechniques has finally made it possible to genetically alter gametesand embryos in vivo. This has made questions about the permissibilityof genetic enhancement pressing.

Several critics of genetic enhancement argue that permittingenhancement is liable to undermine important human values. Sandelargues that the control that enhancement technology would allowparents is liable to undermine their humility in the face of the giftof their children, impose responsibilities that we are not prepared todeal with, and threaten social solidarity (Sandel 2007). Habermasargues that parents who genetically enhance their children will,through the control they exert, prevent their children from enteringrelationships of moral equality and undermine their ability to beautonomous (Habermas 2003). Both have been criticized for exaggeratingthe likely effects of permitting enhancement technologies (Fenton2006; Lev 2011).

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

The fairness objection also assumes that the advantages of geneticenhancement are competitive advantages, so that an enhancement wouldmake the recipient better able to compete with others for goods suchas careers and social status. This assumption underlies concerns boththat the availability of enhancements would exacerbate existinginequalities and that if universally available they would becollectively self-defeating (as, for example, if everyone were to add6 inches to their height) (Glannon 2001). However, this assumptionmight be false; for example, literacy is a non-genetic enhancementwhich is beneficial both to the literate person and others (Buchanan2008).

While most discussions of the ethics of genetic enhancement havefocused on whether the practice is ever permissible, some ethicistsargue that it is not only permissible for parents to enhance theirchildren, but a positive duty. Savulescu (2001) argues for what hecalls the Principle of Procreative Beneficence: couples should usepre-genetic diagnosis and selective abortion to choose the child, ofthe children they could have, who will have the best life. Thisnaturally extends to using genetic enhancement. Savulescu’sjustification for the principle of Procreative Beneficence is that itseems irrational not to select the best child when no other reasonsare relevant to one’s choice. But this seems like a very weakprinciple: it seems likely that at least some other reason willfrequently apply. For example, prospective parents might just preferto leave their child’s genetic makeup up to chance. If this isnot an irrational preference, then it plausibly gives some reason forthem not to select any particular embryo to implant. Savulescu’sview is extended in further papers which claim that the principle ofProcreative Beneficence has greater moral weight than simply being atiebreaker when no other reasons apply (Savulescu and Kahane 2009,281; for criticism see Parker 2010, Carter and Gordon 2013, Bennett2014). These and related issues are discussed at length in the entriesonenhancementandeugenics.

Finally, controversy is not limited to genetic interventions: thereare live debates about whether parents may choose (male) circumcision,clitoridectomy, marrow donation, sex assignment of inter-sexedchildren, and other surgical interventions (see, e.g., Mazor 2019 oncircumcision; Parens 2006, on surgically shaping children).

3.4 Institutional Policies and Justice

Many bioethicists move beyond a focus on individual rights to considerthe broader context and effects of reproductive policy. As discussedinSection 2.3, these include communitarian conservatives who are concerned with theeffects of reproductive policy, particularly regarding ARTs, on socialattitudes towards the value of life and the meaning of family (Sandel2007). They also include some liberals who, emphasizing the value ofautonomy, treat market exchanges and consensual services as“innocent until proven guilty.” But rather than focusingjust on the effects of particular procreative choices, these liberalsalso attend to the impact of institutionalizing practices such asgenetic selection or IVF within a society that aims to maintainliberal background institutions (Glover et al. 1989; Buchanan et al.2000; Brock 2005). Institutionalization foregrounds concerns whichthose focused on individual choices downplay, such as the various andfar-reaching effects of large numbers, the incentives that policiescreate, and opportunity costs. For such liberals it will be impossibleto determine the scope of procreative rights without consideringinstitutional structure and social context, given reasonableassumptions about human motivations (Cavaliere 2020).

For instance, when many people make similar reproductive choices, theresulting “baby boom” may reshape the social, economic,political, and environmental landscape. Such concerns apply to the useof ARTs, such as for sex selection: sex ratios might become grosslyskewed in countries with a strong preference for male children (Xue2010). Such societal consequences are also predicted by disabilitytheorists who argue that normalizing genetic testing and embryoselection or abortion to prevent certain impairments could lead toincreased stigma against and decreased resources for people with suchimpairments (see also the entry ondisability). Such concerns might provide grounds for restricting ARTs orincentivizing their use.

Liberal accounts of procreative autonomy may face problems in acontext of social inequality and over-population. Some affirmprocreative autonomy, but regard it as compatible with apparentlycoercive population policies such as limitations on the number ofchildren particular persons may have. This may be because they regardprocreative autonomy as a merely prima facie right, less weighty thanother rights, such as the right to a minimally decent quality of life(Bayles 1979). Or they may conceive of procreative autonomy morenarrowly than is commonly done (O’Neill 1979; Hill 1991).O’Neill, for example, construes procreative autonomy asrequiring an intention to rear the resulting child so that it has alife at least normal for its society. Without such intentions, parentsare not exercising a right to procreate, and thus policies to curtailtheir behavior do not constitute coercive infringements of procreativeautonomy. Recent work in this area has examined the extent to whichthe state is justified in restricting procreation in light of itsenvironmental costs (Conly 2016; Bognar 2019). In sum, on such views,procreative autonomy is one among many important forms of autonomy,which may conflict among themselves, and with the state’slegitimate (or compulsory) ends such as the provision of public goodsand compliance with national constitutions. Talk of rights, from sucha standpoint, is appropriate only within a nexus of liberties, claims,powers, and ends. From such a perspective, the implications of a rightto procreative autonomy are much less straightforward than from theindividually focused perspective. This coheres with the feministcritiques of procreative autonomy and the intersectional approach toreproductive justice discussed inSection 2.3. These approaches take the context and the effects of reproductivechoices, particularly their effects on disadvantaged groups, to becrucial to evaluating whether they are just.

One further problem for liberals is posed by divergent societal viewson the nature of the good for children. Respecting such divergentviews seems to be required by equal respect, but this is in tensionwith the need to define standards for child welfare and parentalauthority. For example, balancing child welfare and parent autonomymay be difficult in culturally diverse societies, in which statestandards of child welfare may be criticized as discriminatory againstchild-rearing practices of cultural minorities (e.g., Dwyer 2018; fordiscussion of child welfare and state neutrality, see Fowler 2010 and2014).

4. Becoming Parents

In virtue of what does one become a moral parent, i.e., a primarybearer of parental rights and/or parental responsibilities withrespect to a particular child? We can distinguish five generalanswers: genetic, labor-based, intentional (or voluntarist), causal,and child-centred accounts. On monistic versions, only one of theseproperties generates parental relationships. On pluralistic accounts,more than one of these relations can ground parenthood.

Some contemporary discussions assume that moral parental rights andresponsibilities or obligations are inseparable (Bayne and Kolers2003). But Archard has argued that this “parental package”view is untenable (Archard and Benatar 2010, 22–25; Archard2010; see also Austin 2007, chap. 3). To take Archard’s example,an estranged, abusive parent may have moral and legal supportobligations but no parental rights; obligations to ensure a child isprovided for do not entail parental rights. It is more plausible, asArchard notes, that parental rights and responsibilities—which,as contrasted with obligations, concern the hands-on, day-to-dayrearing of the child—come together. Even these, in somecircumstances, might come apart—as when an estranged parentretains some decision-making rights but holds no responsibilities.Moreover, the grounds for parental rights and parentalresponsibilities may be distinct, even if parents typically have both.For example, Millum argues for a labor-based account of parentalrights but a voluntarist account of parental responsibilities (Millum2017).

4.1 Genetic accounts

Genetic theories ground parenthood in the relation of direct geneticderivation. Geneticism thus places parenthood in the nexus of otherfamilial relations, such as being a sibling, cousin, and so on, whichappear to have a genetic basis and which appear (at least to some) tocome along with certain moral rights and responsibilities (Velleman2005, Groll 2021; see discussion in Brake and Cutas 2025).

Hall (1999) defends geneticism by appeal to the Lockean notion ofself-ownership. Since genetic parents own the genetic material fromwhich the child is constituted, they have a prima facie parental claimto the child. There are a number of problems with this line ofargument (Kolers & Bayne 2001) and it is an argument that Lockehimself rejected (Franklin-Hall 2012). First, it subsumes parentalrelations under property relations, by attempting to derive a claimabout parenthood from premises involving claims about ownership. Theplausibility of this derivation is based on emphasizing parentalrights associated with exclusivity and authority, and downplayingparental responsibilities. Those responsibilities—to both childand community—pull sharply against a property-based analysis ofparenthood. Second, taking self-ownership seriously entails thatchildren own themselves, and this surely defeats any proprietary claimthat their parents might have in them (Archard 1990). Third, geneticparents do not provide the material from which the child isconstituted in utero; that derives from the gestational mother, notthe genetic parents (Silver 2001). Of course, the child’sgenetic make-up structures that matter, but to argue for the priorityof the genetic over the gestational contribution is to argue for thepriority of form over matter, and it is not obvious that this iswarranted.

Other arguments for geneticism derive from considering paternity, inthat direct genetic derivation appears to provide the most plausibleaccount of the basis of fatherhood (this issue is also raised in thedebate over anonymous sperm donation, discussed inSection 3.1). Several recent legal cases have overturned adoptions on the groundsthat the estranged father, unidentified at the time of birth, hasreturned to claim the child (Rosenman 1995, Shanley 1995). Supportersof these decisions endorse the view that unalienated genetic claims tochildren can override months or even years of rearing by the adoptiveparents, as well as the earlier failure of the father to claim thechild. Similarly, in “surrogacy” cases, many writers haveargued—or simply assumed—that a genetic father may havehis own child by contracting with a surrogate mother. This seems topresuppose a genetic account of paternity; and it is a small step froma genetic account of paternity to a genetic account of parenthood. Oneneed appeal only to the principle of “parity,” accordingto which the sort of relationship that makes one person a parentsuffices to make anyone else a parent (Bayne & Kolers 2003; Austin2004).

4.2 Labor-Based accounts

An alternative account views parents’ work, rather than theirgenetic relationships, as essential to the parental relation.According to these labor-based accounts, people who play or haveplayed a parental role in a child’s life have thereby become theparents. In this spirit, a number of authors have argued that theprimary ground of parenthood is the gestational relation (Rothman1989; Feldman 1992). In reproductive contexts in which a child’sgestational mother differs from its genetic mother—as in egg (orembryo) donation and gestational surrogacy—it is therefore thegestational mother who has the primary claim to parental rights andresponsibilities. This line of argument can be expanded to includepeople besides the gestational mother who have taken a parental rolein rearing a child (Millum 2010; 2017, Chapter 2).

Three main considerations are presented in favor of labor-basedaccounts. One focuses on the interests of the child. Where a child hasbeen looked after by a person or people for some time, it is thoughtto be very damaging for her to be taken away from them (Archard 2004).Moreover, the child and gestator are already involved in an intimaterelationship at birth, which it is arguably prima facie wrong to sever(Gheaus 2018a; on the caring relationship as the ground of parenthood,see also Shanley 2018). However, while recognizing the gestationalmother or caregivers as parents will sometimes serve the bestinterests of the child, it is implausible that this will always be thecase. This argument might, at best, ground laws presuming that thegestational mother and rearing parents have a claim to be the legalparents. Since there will likely be cases in which being reared bysomeone else would be better for the child, it will be difficult tojustify the assignment of parenthood on the grounds of labor in everycase.

A second line of argument appeals to what parents deserve for the workthey do. Gestational mothers typically invest a substantial amount ofeffort into the child. In Narayan’s words, a gestational mothertypically undergoes “considerable discomfort, effort, and riskin the course of pregnancy and childbirth” (Narayan 1999, 81;also Gheaus 2012). While this account appears to give a special roleto gestational mothers, it can include parenting partners who helpbear the costs or contribute to establishing a relationship (forexample, by viewing an ultrasound image together). Similarly, thepeople who care for a child invest a great deal of work. It mighttherefore be thought that they deserve to be the parents (Millum 2010;2017, Chapter 2).

Labor-based accounts have the advantage over genetic accounts thatthey can explain why the individuals they pick out as the parentsought to have parental rights. They also incorporate adoptive andother non-biological parental relationships into a single account ofparenthood, whereas genetic accounts seem forced to viewnon-biological parenthood as a distinct type of normativerelationship. Objections to gestationalist accounts of parenthood maystart from the problem of paternity: if gestation is necessary forparenthood, how can men become fathers (Bayne & Kolers 2003)?Broader labor-based accounts that count the work of other caregiverscan explain fatherhood, but they still seem to give the gestationalmother veto power over other potential parents. As Barbara KatzRothman puts it: “if men want to have children, they will eitherhave to develop the technology that enables them to become pregnant… or have children through their relationships withwomen” (Rothman 1989, 257). Some will find this implausible.

4.3 Intentional and Voluntarist Accounts

A third approach to parenthood, popular with legal theorists, appealsto intentions as the ground of parenthood (Hill 1991; Shultz 1990;Stumpf 1986). Intentionalists motivate their position by appeal tocases like the following. The Khans wish to have a child “oftheir own.” They screen egg and sperm providers and findproviders who satisfy their requirements. They then select agestational mother, who carries the fetus to term and then hands theinfant 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 ofcreating a unique individual whom they intend to raise as theirown” (Hill 1991, 359), the Khans should be regarded as thechild’s sole parents.

Another argument for intentionalism appeals to the “case of themisplaced sperm”:

Bruce is about to undergo some risky medical treatment, and has placedsome 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 withthat of a sperm-donor and is used by Bessie to produce a child. DoesBruce acquire parental rights and responsibilities over Bessie’schild?

Intuitions vary here, but there is at least some pull towards denyingthat Bruce’s genetic relation to Bessie’s child gives himany parental claim over it. The reason Bruce lacks a parental relationto Bessie’s child seems to be that he didn’t intentionallybring the child into existence.

Intentionalism construes parenthood as relying on facts about agencyrather than biology; for the intentionalist, parenthood isfundamentally a moral relationship rather than a biological one (seeFuscaldo 2006, for discussion). Some philosophical defenses ofintentionalism appeal to a voluntaristic account of responsibilitiesin general (Van Zyl 2002). If special obligations to particular othersare generally acquired voluntarily, then it is plausible that parentalobligations are also voluntarily incurred (O’Neill 1979; Brake2005, 2010; for criticism see Prusak 2011a, b). Furthermore, parentalobligations are role obligations. While it is a matter of debatewhether any role obligations can be acquired involuntarily, it is atleast plausible that roles assumed as adults (as opposed to roles oneis born into) require voluntary acceptance. Finally, parental roleobligations are conventional: their scope and content varies byjurisdiction and society. This suggests an unfairness if suchextensive obligations are incurred involuntarily (Brake 2010). On theother hand, once it is recognized that parental obligations areconventional, the content of parental obligations and the voluntaryactions required to acquire them can be explained with reference tosocial conventions of parenthood (Millum 2008; 2017, Chapter 4).Another defense of intentionalism appeals to parental autonomy, asopposed to the way in which obligations are incurred: Richards arguesfor a variant of the intentional view according to which parentalrights derive from “a right to continue [projects] we haveunderway” (Richards 2010, 23; see also Lange 2024).

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

Perhaps the most widespread objection to the voluntarist account isthat it seems to absolve unintending procreators from parentalobligation. However, many share the view that procreators, intendingor not, who voluntarily engaged in sex have a moral responsibility toa resulting child due to their role in causing it to exist (Austin2007; Fuscaldo 2006; Millum 2008).

Whatever the prospects of a voluntarist account of parenthood, avoluntarist account of familial relations in general is implausible.The duties that siblings have to each other, or that children have totheir parents, are not easily understood as voluntary undertakings.This is a problem for voluntarist accounts of parenthood to the extentthat duties between parents and children should fit within a widerframework of familial duties (Rachels 1989; Mills 2003; see Mullin2010, for discussion; and the entry onspecial obligations).

4.4 Causal Accounts

Fourth, parenthood may be grounded in causation (Nelson 1991; Bigelowet al. 1988; Blustein 1997; Archard 2010). A causal account differsfrom intentionalism in that one can cause something without intendingto do so. Indeed, one can cause a certain state of affairs even whenone is unaware that one’s actions could do so. One needn’thave grasped the connection between sexual intercourse and pregnancyin order to be the cause of a child’s existence.

One of the attractions of the causal account is its promise to accountfor the plausibility of genetic, labor-based, and intentional accountsof parenthood. Genetic, gestational, and caregiving relationshipscontribute to the child’s existence or development, and, in thecases that some intentionalists appeal to, the commissioning coupleare a cause of the child’s existence. Causalism offers toexplain 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 sowide: for example, procreation might not have occurred‘but-for’ the urgings of would-be grandparents or theactions of the match-making friend who introduced the parents. This isthe “too many parents” problem (Hanna 2019). But it isunclear what notion of causation the causal theorist should adoptinstead of ‘but-for’ causation (Blustein 1997). Second,what implications does the causal account have? Even with asatisfactory account of causation it may be unclear whom the accountascribes parenthood to in any particular case—or if it is clearenough, there is a risk of an ad hoc account of causation tailor-madefor this purpose. Concern with the arbitrariness of the causal chainby means of which a child may be created leads writers such asFuscaldo (2006) to emphasize that what is wanted is not a theory ofcausation but of agency (see also Austin 2004, 2007). This leadscausal theorists back in the direction of intentionalism. It has alsobeen recently noted that causal accounts of parental rights andresponsibilities may have unanticipated implications forintergenerational ethics – while these may not give reason toreject the causal account, causal theorists should consider thesebroader implications (Gheaus 2016a, Unruh 2021).

A related problem is that causal accounts often leave it unclear howcausal responsibility generates moral responsibility. Sometimes itappears that the thought is that procreators, by causing a child toexist, have placed it in a needy position and so owe it, ascompensation, “procreative costs.” But these costs arearguably not equivalent to the weighty responsibilities of parenthood(Brake 2010). The question is whether, as a result of causalresponsibility for their existence, parents merely owe children repairof their needy condition, by fostering survival to adulthood, orwhether such “procreative costs” include a richer set ofparental responsibilities, such as a duty to love and to make thechild “content with his condition” (Prusak 2011b, 67; seealso Brandt 2024).

One final alternative, as noted above, is a ‘pluralist’account which allows that more than one of these relations (such ascausation or intention) may be sufficient, but not necessary, forparenthood (Bayne and Kolers 2003). Pluralist accounts have not yetbeen developed in depth.

4.5 Child-Centred Accounts

The accounts of the acquisition of parental rights that this entry hasso far discussed focus on what could ground an adult’s claim toparent a specific child – whether it be their biologicalconnection, intention to parent, or investment of parental labor. Sometheorists reject the assumption that prospective parents’interests or rights are relevant at all (Montague 2000; Vallentyne2003; Dwyer 2021; Gheaus 2021, 2024). These child-centred accounts saythat parental rights are justified only insofar as they are in theinterests of the child.

On a weaker version of this view, the best interests of the childwould simply be used to adjudicate between adults with competingclaims to parent. As a policy matter, this is frequently the criterionused for resolving custody cases. Who has a claim to parent a childwould then still be decided by which of the previously describedaccounts of the acquisition of parental rights one adopts. However, astronger and more radical version of the view says that, in principle,any competent adult could be a candidate parent for any child. Thecriteria are simply the willingness of the prospective parent and thebest interests of the child. Crucially, the interests of would-beparents do not count on these radical child-centred accounts.

How dramatic the real-world implications of child-centred views wouldbe depends on how much reallocation of children would be in thosechildren’s interests. For children who are already part offamilies and receiving care above some minimal threshold, the traumaof separation would presumably proscribe changing their parents.However, for newborns, who have not yet attached to their currentcaregivers, the threshold for reallocation would be much lower (thoughsee Gheaus 2012).

To many, strong child-centred accounts have implications for practicethat are too counter-intuitive. Proponents must therefore either showthat these implications do not follow or accept them and explain whythey are not, in the end, so problematic. Their critics, in turn, facethe argumentative burden of justifying why the claims to parent ofsome adults are strong enough to outweigh the interests of theirchildren in optimal rearing (Shields 2022; Altman 2023).

4.6 Institutional Frameworks: Family, Adoption, Licensing

Parenthood is not only a moral and social relationship, but also alegal one. The state plays a significant role in deciding who gets toparent – through legislation setting out the standards fordetermining legal parenthood (which is relevant, e.g., in cases ofdispute) and through policies that encourage or discourage differentforms of procreation and parenting.

Much recent debate has focused on the effects of the legal institutionof the family on procreative choices and child welfare. Arguments forincentivizing procreation within marriage assume that children rearedwithin marriages will benefit as contrasted with those reared outsidemarriages (Galston 1991, chap. 10; but see Young 1995). Others haveargued that legally separating marriage and parenting will allow thestate to support both children and their caregivers more directly(Shrage 2018) or that recognizing more than two parents will benefitchildren as well as serving broader social goals such as resourceconservation (Gheaus 2019, Grill 2020). Such revisionist argumentsextend to legal institutionalization of non-parental care forchildren: for example, Gheaus has argued for the institutionalprovision of non-parental care on child welfare grounds (Gheaus 2011,2018b), and Brake for the legal recognition of paid childcare workersas family (Brake 2018). Liberal feminists have argued for state familypolicy—such as parental leave and incentives for egalitarianco-parenting—to promote gender equality (e.g., Schouten 2019).Adoption policy has also been the focus of recent discussion, withdebates over open adoption and attention to the difficulties of LGBTadoption (Haslanger and Witt 2006; Baylis and McLeod 2014, Part IV).Family policy also has effects on racial equality, as Dorothy Robertspoints out in her criticism of state policies on terminating parentalrights which disproportionately affect black families (Roberts 2006,2022).

Adoption policy has also been the focus of recent discussion, withdebates over open adoption and attention to the difficulties of LGBTadoption (Haslanger and Witt 2006; Baylis and McLeod 2014, Part IV).Formal adoptions require the transfer of legal parenthood and sodecisions must be made about who will be permitted to adopt (VaughanBrakman 2013). Depending on the country there may be restrictions onadoption by unmarried couples, same-sex couples, or adopters whose ageis too close or too distant from the child. In many jurisdictions,would-be adopters must be evaluated, undergo mandatory training, andhave their family history, financial status, and health checked beforebeing approved to adopt. Procreators – assisted or not –generally do not have to deal with these hurdles (McLeod and Botterell2014). Given the well-known harms to children from delays in placingthem in permanent homes, we may ask whether such criteria areunnecessarily strict.

Other policy questions concern the use of public resources to supportprocreation and parenting. As noted above (Section 3.1), public health care systems often provide infertility treatment.Should the money used be instead directed towards other health needs,or, indeed, towards subsidizing adoption (De Wispelaere and Weinstock2014)? Similar questions concern newer therapies, like uterustransplantation. For example, Lotz (2018) argues that the socialprovision of uterus transplantation perpetuates the unmet needs ofchildren in need of adoption by redirecting resources away from themand perpetuates the social stigma associated with adoptionthrough the message it communicates about the importance of havinggenetically related children.

The state may intervene in ongoing parental relationships in cases ofsuspected abuse or neglect. But by the time matters have reached thispoint, irreparable damage has often been caused, and the actions thatcan be taken to improve a child’s situation are likely to belimited. Some philosophers argue that prospective parents should bescreened ahead of time for their ability to parent and those who aredeemed unlikely to be able to fulfill their parental responsibilitiesshould not be granted parental licenses. The argument in favor oflicensing parents may appeal primarily to the harms to children thatoccur if unfit people are allowed to parent (LaFollette 1980, 2010) orto the wider impact on society from rearing children who are unlikelyto become good citizens (McFall 2009). Either way proposals forparental licensing schemes must show that it is possible prospectivelyto identify individuals who are likely to be neglectful or abusiveparents with sufficient accuracy (Altman 2023), show that the schemesdo not violate the rights of prospective parents (on this see Liao2015), and explain how they are to be enforced. The latter is perhapsthe hardest challenge: without resorting to compulsory sterilizationhow can people be prevented from having children without licenses?(McFall 2009, 122) Of course, there could be penalties for unlicensedparents, or their children could be subject to confiscation, but suchpolicies risk inadvertently penalizing the children they were intendedto assist (Freiman 2022). Moreover, enforcement woulddisproportionately burden women. As gestators, women might besubjected to de facto forced abortions; women are also more likely tobe primary caregivers, and thus subjected to greater interference andmonitoring (Engster 2010).

5. Being Parents

5.1 Parental Rights

Parents have moral and legal rights regarding their children. Theyhave the liberty to make decisions on behalf of their childrenregarding matters such as diet, schooling, association with others,medical care, and—more controversially—religiousobservance, and the right to exclude others from such decision-making.Such rights decrease in strength and scope as children gaindecision-making capacity, yet until the child reaches moral or legalcompetence, issues of substituted judgment and surrogatedecision-making remain (Ross 2002).

Parental rights’ content, extent, and relation to parentalobligations is determined by the underlying theory of why parentspossess 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 hischild, and exclude others from the making of these choices, only inthe service of and thus constrained by a duty to care for the child.It is in the first instance because a dependent child must havedecisions made for it that a designated parent is entitled to makethose decisions.” (Archard 2010, 108; see also Brennan andNoggle 1997; Austin 2007).

Other theories provide support for parent-centered, as opposed tochild-centered, accounts of parental rights in terms of parents’interests. Brighouse and Swift argue for parental rights on the basisof the irreplaceable good offered by parenting. Because parenting is aproject with goods which cannot be obtained through other activities,such as the responsibility of caring for a child and the receipt ofchildren’s spontaneous trust, affection, and intimacy, theinterest in parenting should be protected. On this account, parentalrights, not parental obligations, are fundamental, because theparents’ interests are the basis for the right (Brighouse andSwift 2006, 2014; see also Shoeman 1980). One line of objection is toask whether the interest in parenting is likely to be undermined bystate intervention in parental decision-making. Here we can usefullydistinguish at least three different kinds of parental interests whichcould ground parental rights to control aspects of theirchildren’s lives: interests in being a fiduciary, interests inintimacy, and interests in “nurturing, counseling, andeducation.” Intimacy and being a fiduciary, which Brighouse andSwift appeal to, arguably need not be undermined by intervention– whereas an interest in authentically nurturing children intoadults might (Altman 2018).

The parental-interest account of parents’ rights addressesproblems raised within political philosophy for the family. Brighouseand Swift generate their account partly in response to the challengeof redistribution of children: if the state should promote childwelfare, why should children not be redistributed at birth to the bestprospective parents, to maximize children’s welfare? But asGheaus points out, while Brighouse and Swift provide an account offundamental parental rights, they do not explain why biologicalparents have rights to rear their biological children, rather thansuch children being redistributed to better prospective parents, whocould thereby undertake their own parenting projects (Gheaus 2012).One response to this concern is to separate the question of howsomeone obtains parental rights (the topic of the previous section)from the question of whose interests—parent, child, orboth—those rights ultimately protect (Millum 2017, Chapter 3).Brighouse and Swift also aim to address the family’s notoriouseffect on equal opportunity – different parenting practices,such as reading bedtime stories, can greatly affect children’slife chances. On their account, certain inequality-producinginstitutions such as private schools and inheritances are notprotected under parents’ rights – but practices essentialto 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 alsopossible (Macleod 2015).

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

A further set of important questions about the content of parentalrights concerns their scope. While it is widely agreed that parentshave rights to make many day-to-day decisions on behalf of theirchildren, a number of purported rights have been questioned.

One controversial right is the right to infuse children withparents’ religious beliefs. On the one hand, handing down suchbeliefs to children is, to many, a key aspect of the parental project(Brighouse and Swift 2006, 2014; Swift 2020). On the other hand,Clayton argues that raising one’s child in a religion violates arequirement of liberal neutrality, which applies to parents just as itapplies to states (Clayton 2006; also Tillson 2019; see Hohl 2025 foran intermediate view). Feminists have raised concerns that religiousinfusion could affect girls’ developing self-respect andautonomy (e.g., Chambers 2017, Chapter 6). Even if such argumentstheoretically justify state intervention, their proponents mustexplain how, in practice, the state could intervene in the intimateparent-child relationship without psychologically harmingchildren.

Another set of questions concerns parental authority over medicalinterventions. Critics have argued that circumcision of male childrenviolates their bodily integrity; but children’s rights to bodilyintegrity must be weighed against other morally weighty interests,including the child’s own interest in community membership(Mazor 2019). Likewise, there is controversy over whether parentsshould have the right to prevent transgender adolescents fromreceiving puberty-blocking treatment; here, harm to transgenderchildren must be weighed (Priest 2019). In such conflicts, there aretensions between parental control rights and children’s rights,but also between different understandings of what the child’sbest interests require (particularly when the child lacksdecision-making capacity). (See entry onchildren’s rights.)

A related debate concerns the authority of parents to control theirchild’s education. Most discussion of this issue has focused onreligion-based objections to the duration or content of publicschooling. This was the context in which Feinberg originally discussedthe child’s “right to an open future,” which heregards as a constraint on parental discretion regarding theirchild’s schooling (1980, see below for further discussion). Akey challenge is how to justify these objections. One strategy is tocite the parents’ right to freedom of religion, but then someargument must be given for why the interests of a child in beingeducated should be sacrificed to the parents’ interests inreligious freedom. A separate question regarding parental rights andeducation is whether parents are ethically permitted to conferadvantages on their children through private schooling, particularlywhen doing so is expected to reduce the quality of education availableto other children (Swift 2003).

Other questions concerning parental rights concern exclusivity and thenumber of possible parents. As step-parenting, procreation involvingmultiple biological, gestational, and social parents, and otherdiverse family forms become more prevalent, why should the number ofparents be limited to two? As noted inSection 1 above, a Canadian court recognized a child as having three parents.Relatives in addition to the parents are frequently involved inraising children, even in cultures in which the nuclear family isconsidered the norm. In the United States, nearly 3 milliongrandparents have primary responsibility for children living in theirhomes and it has been argued that grandparental rights should belegally recognized (Henderson 2005). Further, some philosophers haveargued 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’sdevelopment, thereby arguably benefiting children (Card 1996; Gheaus2011 and 2019; hooks 1984; Collins 1991; Mullin 2005; see alsoSections 3.4 and4.6 above).

So far, we have considered parental rights as parents’ moral andlegal claims to make, and exclude others from, decisions regardingtheir child. But some philosophers have argued for other rights heldby parents—namely, positive rights to social support forchild-rearing. These proposals are discussed inSection 5.2, as they aim at helping parents discharge their responsibilities.

5.2 Parental Responsibilities

Parenthood inhabits the intersection of two distinct relationships: acustodial relationship between parent and child, and a trusteerelationship between the parents and the larger society or othercollective. Both may generate responsibilities.

The custodial relationship involves a set of duties aimed at, andjustified by, the welfare of the child. As custodian, the parent isunder a limited obligation to work for and organize his or her lifearound the welfare and development of the child, for the child’ssake. Analysis of the content of parental responsibilities hastherefore mostly focused on the rights of the child. Feinberg’sright to an “open future” can be read as a limit onparental discretion (see5.1). It can also be interpreted as giving children positive claims tocertain goods, such as an education that leaves them with a wide rangeof valuable life plans to choose from. Whether there is such apositive right and in what it consists are matters of dispute (Liao2015; Mills 2003; Lotz 2006 and 2014; Millum 2014 and 2025; essays inArchard and Macleod 2002; entry onchildren’s rights). Another question is whether parental responsibilities end when thechild reaches adulthood, or whether they are lifelong (Weinberg2018).

Societies, families, and cultural groups also have interests in thewelfare of children. For instance, the state has an interest in thereproduction of its workforce and its citizens; hence parentaldecisions that threaten the child’s chances of becoming a fullyparticipating citizen may come under special state scrutiny. Distinctgroups, such as the state and cultural groups, may make conflictingclaims on the parents as trustees. For instance, in order to promoteculturally prescribed norms, parents might seek to remove their childfrom school, or have their daughter undergo clitoridectomy; yet thestate may claim that such a decision violates the parents’trustee relationship on grounds that the state has a compellinginterest in securing the full citizenship capacities and rights of itscitizens (Galston 1995; Okin 1989; Chambers 2017, Chapter 6).Moreover, discharging parental responsibilities must be balanced withdischarging obligations of distributive and global justice (Archardand Macleod 2002, Part III; Macleod 2010).

Indeed, some philosophers argue that parental responsibilities includeduties towards social or environmental justice. For example, parentsarguably have a duty of egalitarian justice to guide their childrenaway from “expensive consumption habits” (Zwarthoed 2017).They may, as parents, have duties to address climate change, on behalfof their children’s, or children’s children’s,interests (Cripps 2017; see also Gheaus 2016a, 2019). This may alsoapply to special duties of adoptive parents, especially ininter-racial adoptions (Haslanger and Witt 2006, see also Baylis andMcLeod 2014).

All parents fail to meet their responsibilities at some point. Wewould not expect someone to raise a child without making mistakesalong the way. However, at some point, excusable parental failingsshade into neglect and abuse. Exactly what counts as child abuse is amatter for debate. However, if abuse marks a threshold above which itis permissible for others—particularly the state—tointervene, then a clear definition is needed (Archard 2004, chap. 14).And, because "dysfunctional" behavior which falls short of abuse andneglect may harm children and even violate their rights, stateinterventions such as education and therapy may be required to preventor address this (Theofilopoulou 2022).

Children need a great deal of care if they are to grow up intoautonomous, healthy adults and good citizens. Parents clearly have theresponsibility to provide some of this care, and the state has theobligation to step in when parents are failing to do as they should.However, there is an open question about what the state should providein cases that do not involve abuse or neglect. As Alstott has argued,parenting imposes opportunity costs on parents, for example, inearning potential. Moreover, child-care labor remainsgender-structured, with women performing by far the greater share. Onthese grounds Alstott argues for caregiver accounts to ensure equalopportunity, for example, allocating educational funds to parents(Alstott 2004). One pertinent question is whether parenting should beconsidered a private good, like an expensive taste which it would beunjust for society to subsidize (Taylor 2009). Some have respondedthat it is a matter of justice due to its effects on equal opportunityfor women and full participation of women as equal citizens (Okin1989; Kittay 1999; Schouten 2019). Others have argued for collectivesocial responsibility for children on grounds such as children’swelfare and their status as a public good, providing positiveexternalities by reproducing society and producing workers who willsupport the current generation in old age (George 1987; Archard 2004;Engster 2010; Olsaretti 2013; Millum 2017, Chapter 5). Finally, muchfeminist scholarship has focused on the unequal division of laborbetween parents within the household and its effect on girls’life chances, and hence on the state’s role in addressing thisgendered division of parenting labor and defining the legalinstitution of the family (Okin 1989, Card 1996, Schouten 2019; seealsoSections 3.4 and4.6; on what parents owe each other as co-parents see Cutas and Hohl2021). (See also the entry onfeminist perspectives on the family.)

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Other Internet Resources

• Home for Good,Statistics: National Statistics for Fostering and Adoption
• Bayne, Time and Kolers, Avery, “Parenthood andProcreation”,The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (e.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/parenthood/>. [This was the previous entry on parenthood and procreation in theStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy—see theversion history.]

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Tim Bayne and Avery Kolers, the authors of theprevious version of this entry, for allowing the use of severalpassages from their original entry—mainly in section 4.