Susan Kennedy (Boston University) - While biological reproduction may be a natural phenomenon, the fact that biological parents are responsible for raising their children is not. It is a matter of convention that our social and legal institutions are designed in such a way that procreation leads to parental rights. While the fundamental right to parent has been persuasively argued for by Brighouse and Swift (2006), there is not yet a convincing argument that establishes a right to parent one’s own biological child. This becomes problematic in light of the ‘re-distribution proposal.’ Until the relationship between procreation and parenthood is defended, there is an open question as to why children should not be re-distributed away from their biological parents when it would be in the child’s best interests to do so. The Causal Account offered by Jeffrey Blustein (1982) is a relatively intuitive view. Essentially, parents are responsible for the children they cause to exist. One problem with this view is the unequal causal roles of mothers and fathers with respect to pregnancy. The parental rights and obligations of the mother seem to start at conception, whereas the father’s parental rights begin the moment the child is born. This leads to the perceived result that the mother has more of a claim to the biological child than the father does. However, the procreative role of parents has the potential to be equalized in light of advances in biotechnology that have led to the development of ectogenesis. With this technology, a fetus would undergo gestation in an artificial womb. Without pregnancy, the mother’s greater causal role in the creation of the child would be eliminated. As a result, the importance of biological reproduction would seem to reside in each parent’s genetic contribution and the implantation of a fertilized embryo, as opposed to the labor involved in gestation. Given that each biological parent contributes a complementary gamete which join together to form the fertilized embryo, the causal role of each parent is equal. Presumably, it follows that each parent’s claim to the child would be equal. In this paper, I will extend Norvin Richards (2010) line of argument that the right to parent one’s biological child is a unique kind of liberty right. The genetic contribution of each biological parent plays a necessary role in causing the child to exist, and once the fertilized embryo is implanted, both biological parents can be considered to have begun the project of parenthood. Thus, implantation of a fertilized embryo is the moment at which parents can be said to have a right to their biological child. There are several consequences of this view in light of current, and potential, assisted reproductive technologies. With respect to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a person does not have the right to create, or implant, a fertilized embryo without the consent of the other genetic contributor. Assuming ectogenesis technology were available, each biological parent would have equal claim to an implanted embryo conceived through consensual sexual intercourse. Notably, it follows that a father has the right to request that the mother undergo fetal extraction. More specifically, if a woman is pregnant but is unwilling to be a parent, she would be obligated to have the fetus removed from her body and placed in an artificial womb in light of the father’s right to his biological child. While a biological parent has the choice to opt-out of being a social parent to the child, the decision to do so does not forfeit the other biological parent’s right to rear the child.
