The Moment One Begins to Have Parental Obligations and How this Matters to Reproductive Ethics
- The Moment One Begins to Have Parental Obligations and How this Matters to Reproductive Ethics
Alvin Chew Kian-Sian is presently a full time student and doctoral candidate at the National University of Singapore's Centre for Biomedical Ethics (CBmE). His current interests are in the ethics of reproductive technologies and Aristotelian virtue ethics. Prior to his studies, he was working for the Secretariat of the Bioethics Advisory Committee, Singapore.
Notes
1. Kolers, A. and T. Bayne (2001) "Are You My Mommy?" On the Genetic Basic of Parenthood, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 18(3), 273.
2. Austin, M. (2007) Conceptions of Parenthood: Ethics and the Family, Ashgate Publishing Limited, England, 11-60.
3. In addition to the two conceptions of parenthood that I will focus on, Austin has also argued that a custodial relationship conception of parenthood is successful in conferring parental status and obligations. I do not discuss the latter conception as it is not relevant to this article. Ibid., 33-60.
4. David Boonin has provided a similar argument against tacit consent in defence of abortion. See Boonin, D. (2003) A Defense of Abortion, Cambridge University Press, New York, 154-9.
5. Note that the following account of a causal conception of parenthood is not what Giuliana Fuscaldo calls a strictly causal one. Indeed, the causal conception of parenthood is compatible with Fuscaldo's account which she calls "candidate parenthood". See Fuscaldo, G. (2006) Genetic Ties: Are They Morally Binding? Bioethics, 20(2), 64-76.
6. Austin, M. (2007) Conceptions of Parenthood: Ethics and the Family, Ashgate Publishing Limited, England, 38-60.
7. This was one of the objections raised in Austin's argument. Ibid., 53-4.
8. What follows from here is an argument adapted from Rivka Weinberg's solution to the non-identity problem. See Weinberg, R. (2008) Identifying and Dissolving the Non-Identity Problem, Philosophical Studies, 137, 3-18.
