Surrogacy and Parenthood - the causal account of parenthood

The causal account of parenthood attempts to identify the persons holding parental status for a child through an analysis of cause and effect. It states that the persons who cause a child to come into existence are the persons to whom we should attribute parental rights and responsibilities.

One of the objections to causal accounts of parenthood lies directly within the notion of causation itself. Bayne and Kolers (Bayne/Kolers, 2008, section-2.4) think a simple x causes y account is too weak a link with which to ground parenthood, and that causation is so general, contingent, and arbitrary that causal links could be made between events that are too departed and irrelevant to hold value. Further, it does little to identify the location of parental responsibility when large numbers of people might be held causally responsible in various manners for a child coming into existence. These are valid points I think, and I believe it seems more appropriate to attribute parental responsibility to some other, more closely tied relation than mere causal responsibility. In practice, causation will simply embody other, more concrete, notions anyway; notions that facilitate a direct gestational, intentional, or genetic account of parenthood. Even if these concepts are in themselves controversial, this seems a far more straightforward starting point for debate.

It is true, the causal account differs in some respects to intentional grounds of parenthood - there are scenarios whereby someone will cause a child to come about even though there was no intention to do so - but it is clear that should someone have the intention of bringing a child into existence, then they may also likely provide some causal influence upon the process of a child being born. For example; organising a surrogacy scenario to take place (Bayne/Kolers, 2008, section-2.3). Similarly, with genetic accounts of parenthood, it is easy to state the fact that providing genetic material for a child automatically applies a causal role in that child’s being. Without the genetic material the child could never be, nor could it be anything other than how it turned out (Bayne/Kolers, 2008, section-2.1). Finally, the gestational account of parenthood notes that the foetus grows inside the gestational bearer and the carriage and nutrition that person is responsible for providing is a direct causal reason for the child being able to come into being (Bayne/Kolers, 2008, section-2.2).

The causal account of parenthood states that whoever causes a child to come about should be deemed sufficiently appropriate to hold parental rights and responsibilities over that child. It is the very nature of causation that makes this view untenable, as it is too general to be applied as a theory in itself and necessarily brings other, more particular, notions into the fray that are of greater philosophical value and weight. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY/REFERENCES

§  Bayne, Tim and Kolers, Avery, "Parenthood and Procreation", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/parenthood/>.