Fatherhood

Surrogacy involves a private agreement whereby a woman who gestates a child attempts to surrender her (putative) moral right to become the parent of that child such that another person (or persons), of the woman’s choice, can acquire it. Since people lack the normative power to privately transfer custody, attempts to do so are illegitimate, and the law should reflect this fact.

This paper reconsiders Tommie Shelby's (2016) analysis of procreation in poor black communities. I identify three conceptual frames within which Shelby situates his analysis—feminization, choice-as-control, and moralization. I argue that these frames should be rejected on conceptual, empirical, and moral grounds. As I show, this framing engenders a flawed understanding of poor black women's procreative lives. I propose an alternative framework for reconceiving the relationship between poverty and procreative justice, one oriented around reproductive flourishing instead of reproductive responsibility. More generally, (...) the paper develops a methodological challenge for nonideal moral and political philosophy, especially concerning the obligations of the oppressed. Specifically, I argue that in the absence of descriptive and conceptual accountability, the moral gaze of the philosopher risks preserving, rather than destabilizing, oppressive ideologies. (shrink)

Cases of non-traditional family-making offer a rich seam for thinking about normative parenthood. Gamete donors are genetically related to the resulting offspring but are not thought to be normative parents. Gestational surrogates are also typically not thought to be normative parents, despite having gestated a child. Adoptive parents are typically thought to be normative parents even though they are neither genetically nor gestationally related to their child. Philosophers have paid attention to these kinds of cases. But they have not paid (...) attention to what the people who have engaged in these forms of family-making have to say about what they’re doing and, more specifically, how they answer the questions: “Who is the normative parent? And why?” Paying attention to their answers reveals two things. First, accounts of parenthood from people involved in two forms of non-traditional family-making – reproduction with gestational surrogacy and reproduction with donated eggs – are mutually inconsistent. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that the contradictory aspects of the views evince a common commitment to, as I shall put it, naturalizing parenthood. The central goal of this paper is to explain what that means, but rough idea is that in naturalizing parenthood, prospective parents aim to put the features that make someone a normative parent beyond the reach of human agency. I conclude by briefly suggesting that we should think of the grounds of normative parenthood – and the very task of theorizing about the grounds of normative parenthood – in a way that avoids the need to naturalize altogether. (shrink)

Disputes between separated couples over whether frozen embryos can be used in an attempt to create a child create a moral dilemma for public policy. When a couple create embryos intending to parent any resulting children, New Zealand’s current policy requires the consent of both people at every stage of the ART process. New Zealand’s Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology has proposed a policy change that would give ex-partners involved in an embryo dispute twelve months to come to an (...) agreement before the embryos are destroyed. New Zealand’s current policy and the proposed policy both favour the person who wishes to avoid procreation. Two alternative policy approaches that do not favour procreative avoidance are considered. Using pre-fertilisation contracts to determine the decision reached in embryo disputes allows the couple’s wishes at the time the embryos are created to determine what happens to the embryos if they separate. However, pre-fertilisation contracts are agreements about healthcare and personal relationships, and changing circumstances can make enforcing such agreements unjust. Finally, it is argued that New Zealand’s Family Court system should be used to reach decisions that balance the interests of those involved in the dispute. (shrink)

According to the causal theory of parenthood, people incur parental obligations by causing children to exist. Proponents of the causal theory often argue that gamete donors have special obligations to their genetic offspring. In response, many defenders of current gamete donation practices would reject the causal theory. In particular, they may invoke the ‘too many parents problem’: many people who causally contribute to the existence of children – for instance, fertility doctors – do not thereby incur parental obligations. This article (...) argues that the conclusions commonly drawn by causal theorists, and by their critics, are premature. Causal theorists have a promising response to the too many parents problem. This response, however, defuses the moral concern that many causal theorists have raised about gamete donation. A similar point, it is argued, applies to Rivka Weinberg’s ‘Hazmat Theory’. -/- . (shrink)

Is the wish to be biologically related to your children legitimate? Here, I respond to an argument in support of a negative answer to this question according to which a preference towards having children one is biologically related to is analogous to a preference towards associating with members of one’s own race. I reject this analogy, mainly on the grounds that only the latter constitutes discrimination; still, I conclude that indeed a preference towards children one is biologically related to is (...) morally illegitimate because, in the context of parental love, biological considerations are normatively irrelevant. (shrink)

Common sense morality and legislations around the world ascribe normative relevance to biological connections between parents and children. Procreators who meet a modest standard of parental competence are believed to have a right to rear the children they brought into the world. I explore various attempts to justify this belief and find most of these attempts lacking. I distinguish between two kinds of biological connections between parents and children: the genetic link and the gestational link. I argue that the second (...) can better justify a right to rear. (shrink)

The birth of our daughter nearly 5 years ago went very well. But in a new city, with some experience on our side and access to a homelike natural birth center connected to a major area hospital, we thought it would be all the better when our son was born. We hadn’t dreamed that the detection of a benign arrhythmia in the baby’s heart would cascade into a situation that would not only undermine our entire birth plan, but force unwanted (...) treatment and threats of abandonment. In this commentary, our intention is to illustrate the way in which narratives, and the commonalities between the stories shared by other authors in this issue and our own, can give profound depth and new insights into the things that happen to us. (shrink)

The perceived meaning of life significantly affects the quality of human life. It is of particular significance in borderline situations. One of such situations is the birth of an intellectually disabled child. The article presents the results of the study concerning the perceived meaning of life in the case of parents who bring up a child with limited intellectual abilities. The study included 87 mothers and 65 fathers bringing up an intellectually disabled child. In the studied cases, parents perceived their (...) life as highly meaningful. The results indicated that the perceived meaning of life in the case of parents of intellectually disabled children was related with: suffering experienced by the parents as a result of a limited intellectual ability of their daughter/son, the manner of performing their parental role and the sense of parental identity. (shrink)

The use of assisted reproductive technology is becoming more and more common nowadays and the procedures that a few years ago would be seen as experimental have now become basic benefits. The present text covers the issues of risks and conflicts faced by family members and related with the use of technology in the process of conceiving and giving birth to a child. The authors pay special attention to the possible use of foreign germ cells in the conception of a (...) child. The article aims to demonstrate that the use of modern and advanced medical technology in health care in the field of medically assisted procreation may be seen as a benefit for the family, which satisfies the desire to have a child, but in the long run it may give rise to legal or psychological problems as well. The authors examine the draft on the infertility treatment. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for the need of a credible concept of fatherhood in present-day Western culture. This claim is based on the belief that fathers and father figures play an important role in constructing unique identities, both in the context of childrearing and in a more general cultural sense. An existential concept of adoption is developed to clarify the notion of credible fatherhood, which is supported, on the one hand, by Dorothee Sölle's analysis of the shift from a (...) religious construction of identity to a post-religious self-construction of identity and, on the other, by Charles Taylor's concept of authenticity. (shrink)

My primary aim is to call into question an influential notion of paternal responsibility, namely, that fathers owe support to their children due to their causal responsibility for their existence. I argue that men who impregnate women unintentionally, and despite having taken preventative measures, do not owe child support to their children as a matter of justice; their children have no right against them to support. I argue for this on the basis of plausible principles of responsibility which have been (...) used to defend abortion rights. I then consider the morally relevant differences between men and women, arguing that while in some cases these differences may justify differential treatment, their import should not be overstated - in many cases, the burden of child support will be too great to impose justly on fathers. This conclusion is not as undesirable as it may seem: I suggest feminist considerations in favor of revising the notion of paternal responsibility and considering alternative arrangements of child support. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether Derrida's “hauntology” as developed in Specters of Marx and related texts, can be anything more than yet another repetition of a specifically male preoccupation with the Father inscribed on the bodies of women, in this case the always absent daughter. A careful reading suggests that Derrida, and playwnght fathers of daughters such as Shakespeare and August Wilson, may be aware of the paradoxes of their situation.

This is a review of Laurence Houlgate's "Family and State: the Philosophy of Family Law. It takes a look at the moral theory from which Houlgate begins and raises questions about is correctness and appropriateness, but it finds more to agree with with respect to his middle-level principles. It considers his definition of "family" in the context of contemporary political controversy over such definitions. It looks at his consequentialist justification for the family, agrees with it, and suggests additional supplementary arguments, (...) primarily from Brigitte and Peter Berger, to give additional support for Houlgate's argument. It looks at his justification for family law and agrees with his principle of optimum communal benefit. It seeks to place Houlgate's views within the context of contemporary political debate about being "pro-family" or "anti-family". It then goes on to look briefly at some of the specific issues of family law that Houlgate considers, taking time to raise a few questions about some of them, and concludes by dealing in a more extensive way with the question of what the extent and limits of state interference in the family should be, agreeing with Houlgate's basic position, but considering further its application to specific issues. (shrink)