ABSTRACT Does genetic relatedness define who is a mother or father and who incurs obligations towards or entitlements over children? While once the answer to this question may have been obvious, advances in reproductive technologies have complicated our understanding of what makes a parent. In a recent publication Bayne and Kolers argue for a pluralistic account of parenthood on the basis that genetic derivation, gestation, extended custody and sometimes intention to parent are sufficient (but not necessary) grounds for parenthood.1 Bayne (...) and Kolers further suggest that definitions of parenthood are underpinned by the assumption that ‘being causally implicated in the creation of a child is the key basis for being its parent’.2 This paper examines the claim that genetic relatedness is sufficient grounds for parenthood based on a causal connection between genetic parents and their offspring. I argue that parental obligations are about moral responsibility and not causal responsibility because we are not morally accountable for every consequence to which we causally contribute. My account includes the conditions generally held to apply to moral responsibility, i.e. freedom and foreseeability. I argue that parental responsibilities are generated whenever the birth of a child is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of voluntary actions. I consider the implications of this account for third parties involved in reproductive technologies. I argue that under some conditions the obligations generated by freely and foreseeably causing a child to exist can be justifiably transferred to others. (shrink)

À partir du livre de Claire Altman, qui relate une double expérience d’adoption homoparentale – deux femmes vivant en couple depuis dix ans ont adopté simultanément, en tant que mères célibataires, deux bébés nés à l’étranger, ex-bébés qui sont maintenant des adolescentes –, l’auteur mène une réflexion clinique et éthique sur les situations d’homoparentalité. Elle développe l’idée que les évolutions des configurations familiales aujourd’hui pourraient conduire à redéfinir les cartes de la parentalité de manière innovante.

Bioethicists tend to focus on the individual as the relevant moral subject. Yet, in highly complex and socially differentiated healthcare systems a number of social groups, each committed to a common cause, are involved in medical decisions and sometimes even try to influence bioethical discourses according to their own agenda. We argue that the significance of these collective actors is unjustifiably neglected in bioethics. The growing influence of collective actors in the fields of biopolitics and bioethics leads us to pursue (...) the question as to how collective moral claims can be characterized and justified. We pay particular attention to elaborating the circumstances under which collective actors can claim ‘collective agency.’ Specifically, we develop four normative-practical criteria for collective agency in order to determine the conditions that must be given to reasonably speak of ‘collective autonomy’. For this purpose, we analyze patient organizations and families, which represent two quite different kinds of groups and can both be conceived as collective actors of high relevance for bioethical practice. Finally, we discuss some practical implications and explain why the existence of a shared practice of trust is of immediate normative relevance in this respect. (shrink)

Medical decisions for children are usually justified by the claim that they are in a child's best interests. More recently, following criticisms of the best interests standard, some advocate that the family's interests should influence medical decisions for children, although what is meant by family interests is often not made clear. I argue that at least two senses of family interests may be discerned. There is a ‘weak’ sense of family interests and a ‘strong’ sense. I contend that there are (...) problems with both approaches in making medical decisions for children but that the weak sense is more plausible. Despite this, I argue that claims for family interests are not helpful in making medical decisions for children. (shrink)