Related Topics

So continuing on from yesterday: I’ve been thinking in terms of offering an affirmative argument for uniform rules. That is to say, I’ve been wanted to construct a case for treating questions of parentage (that’s “who is a parent?”) the same across categories. One way to do that is to talk about the costs on non-uniformity. And I think there are many costs. Varying results state to state and method to method bring uncertainty and unpredictability. Those very factors will cause enormous disruption and pain to some families.

But instead of proceeding this way, there’s another possible approach, one which re-frames the question entirely: Start with the question “Why would we treat parentage differently depending on the process that people used to become parents?”

The very first post I wrote touched on why we care so much about who the parents of a child are. Parentage is an enormous privilege and an enormous responsibility. Parents have obligations and parent have power. We need to be able to clearly establish who holds that power and who bears that responsibility. But why should our answer differ depending on exactly how one got to be a parent? Is the power/obligation of an adoptive parent different from that of a genetically related parent? Should it be?

Of course, what parentage is really about is figuring out who holds the power/bears the obligation. But again, should our criteria really turn on external factors like how exactly a particular sperm got to the place where it could fertilize and egg? (This isn’t fantasy. The law in Washington, for example, will make you a parent if the pregnancy if the result of intercourse but a non-parent if it resulted from insemination, unless of course you happen to be married to the mother, in which case you are a parent even if the sperm got there because someone else had intercourse with the mother.)

Perhaps this takes me to a general question about what the rationale for parentage determinations should be. Should the determination of parentage itself be based on what is best for a child? (I know it seems tempting, but it’s potentially quite problematic.) If it isn’t grounded in that, then where do we ground it? is it about some sort of fairness to the parents? Some recognition of expectation? Of performance? Of something else?