Table Of ContentParental Obligations and Bioethics
This book investigates what obligations a parent incurs by bringing a
child into being. In other words, it shares with Mary Shelley—from whose
Frankenstein the book’s subtitle is derived—an interest in the duties of
parents as creators, or, as the author writes, “qua procreators.” Toward
this end, the book develops accounts both of how parental obligations
are acquired and what these obligations amount to. Its basic thesis is
that parents, as procreators, have obligations regarding future children
that put constraints on procreative liberty. Moreover, these obligations
go beyond respecting a child’s rights, in particular the oft-invoked child’s
right to an open future. The author brings the book’s account of paren-
tal obligations to bear on the ethics of adoption, child support, gamete
donation, surrogacy, and prenatal genetic enhancement. A fi nal chapter
examines the question of public responsibility for children and argues
that it is much greater than typically acknowledged.
Bernard G. Prusak is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the
McGowan Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility at King’s College in
Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA.
Routledge Annals of Bioethics
Edited by Mark J. Cherry, St. Edward’s University, USA and
Ana Smith Iltis, Wake Forest University, USA
1 Regional Perspectives in 9 The Ethics of Abortion
Bioethics Women’s Rights, Human Life,
Edited by Mark J. Cherry and and the Question of Justice
John F. Peppin Christopher Kaczor
2 Religious Perspectives on 10 Bioethics, Public Moral
Bioethics Argument, and Social
Edited by Mark J. Cherry, Ana Responsibility
Smith Iltis, and John F. Peppin Edited by Nancy M. P. King and
Michael J. Hyde
3 Research Ethics
Edited by Ana Smith Iltis 11 The Ethics of Gender-Specific
Disease
4 Thomistic Principles and Mary Ann Cutter
Bioethics
Jason T. Eberl 12 Death, Posthumous Harm,
and Bioethics
5 The Ethics of Genetic James Stacey Taylor
Engineering
Roberta M. Berry 13 Human Dignity in Bioethics
From Worldviews to the Public
6 Legal Perspectives in Bioethics Square
Edited by Ana Smith Iltis, Sandra Edited by Stephen Dilley and
H. Johnson, and Barbara A. Nathan J. Palpant
Hinze
14 Parental Obligations and
7 Biomedical Research and Bioethics
Beyond The Duties of a Creator
Expanding the Ethics of Inquiry Bernard G. Prusak
Christopher O. Tollefsen
8 Practical Autonomy and
Bioethics
James Stacey Taylor
Parental Obligations
and Bioethics
The Duties of a Creator
Bernard G. Prusak
First published 2013
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Bernard G. Prusak to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Prusak, Bernard G.
Parental obligations and bioethics : the duties of a creator / by Bernard
G. Prusak. — 1 [edition].
pages cm. — (Routledge annals of bioethics ; 14)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Bioethics. 2. Parenting—Moral and ethical aspects.
3. Child rearing—Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Sexual ethics.
I. Title.
QH332.P78 2013
174.2—dc23
2013013957
ISBN: 978-0-415-70333-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-79473-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For M.S.K., in gratitude, and in memory of my mother
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 What Are Parents For? A Thought Experiment 7
§1. The Tradition and Two Answers 10
§2. The Given Relationship 15
§3. The Transfer Principle 19
2 The Costs of Procreation 24
§1. Reckonings 27
§2. Another Account 30
§3. The Offices of Nature 37
Note: The Conventional-Acts Account 41
3 Abortion and the Grounds of Parental Obligations 43
§1. Brake against the Causal Account 46
§2. McMahan to the Rescue 50
§3. The Reply to (the Reply to) the Responsibility Objection 56
Note: The Responsibilities of “Duped Dads” 59
4 Whose Child? 61
§1. Pandora’s Babies 62
§2. You Are the (Wo)man! 66
§3. The Transfer Principle, Take Two 72
viii Contents
5 Good Enough Parenting? The Child’s Right to an Open
Future and the Ethics of Prenatal Genetic Enhancement 84
§1. The “Liberal Argument” 85
§2. The Good and the Right 89
§3. Good Enough? 93
6 Back from the Future: Paying for the Priceless Child 101
§1. Injustice and the Family 103
§2. Making Good 106
Notes 111
Bibliography 149
Index 161
Acknowledgments
Parts of this book are derived from material that fi rst saw the light of
day in rougher forms. I am grateful to the various publishers both for
permission to reprint this material and for seeing value in my articles. I
thank series editors Mark Cherry and Ana Smith Iltis for seeing value in
this book.
Chapter 1 draws from and signifi cantly recasts “What Are Parents For?
Reproductive Ethics after the Non-Identity Problem,” H astings Center
Report 40/2 (2010): 37–47. Chapter 2 draws from, corrects, and extends
both “The Costs of Procreation,” J ournal of Social Philosophy 42/1 (2011):
61–75 and “Whither the ‘Offi ces of Nature’? Kant and the Obligation to
Love,” P roceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 83
(2009): 113–128. Chapter 3 draws from, and counters criticisms raised by,
“Breaking the Bond: Abortion and the Grounds of Parental Obligations,”
Social Theory and Practice 37/2 (2011): 311–332. Chapter 5 is based on
“Not Good Enough Parenting: What’s Wrong with the Child’s Right to an
‘Open Future,’ ” S ocial Theory and Practice 34/2 (2008): 271–291. Finally,
chapter 6 modifi es “Paying for the Priceless Child,” Proceedings of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association 86 (2012).
The quotations from Job in chapters 1 and 2 are taken from the New
Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 Division of Christian
Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United
States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The excerpt
from “This Be the Verse” comes from C ollected Poems by Philip Larkin.
Copyright © 1988, 2003 by the Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by
permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, and Faber and Faber Ltd.
When I am doing philosophy well, or reading or listening to a very
good philosopher, the experience is of discovering new, surprising, won-
derful, and sometimes baffl ing depths and complications to existence, our
lives, and our beliefs. Hardly a claim does not give way under its own
pressure, calling for further thought and work. It can be exhausting, and
it can be exhilarating. I am grateful to colleagues, friends, students, and
some very fi ne referees for helping me in this work, encouraging me in it,
and enjoying doing it with me.
