Intended Parents and the Problem of Perspective

Abstract

When asked to identify the legal parents of a child, traditional family law principles look backwards in time, primarily to biology and to marriage. People using assisted reproductive technologies such as surrogacy, however, seek to manifest their intent to become parents with a forwardlooking temporal perspective, before a child is conceived and born. This mismatch leaves a parentage void for children of assisted reproductive technologies that should be filled through the use of prebirth parentage orders recognizing intended parents as legal parents-to-be. Intent will not only ameliorate specific problems for such children, but also deepen normative values of parenting such as planning for parenthood, and minimize irrelevant characteristics such as gender.

Respecting Intent and Dispelling Stereotypes by Reducing Unintended Pregnancy

“…She generally supports a more robust role for intent in resolving ART disputes 2 and worries that adding abortion to the analysis may undermine that position: "[I]f some of the rhetoric debating abortion rights minimizes the expectational parental interest of men, does that rhetoric work at cross-purposes to…application of intentbased rules in other contexts?" 3 Similarly, Purvis posits that abortion discourse unfairly portrays men as uninterested in childbearing, which in turn perpetuates gender stereotypes about women.…”

Legalizing LGBT Families: How the Law Shapes Parenthood

“…It is unrealistic, however, to expect every family hoping to add children to expend the time and money to hire a family lawyer to outline the legal framework of legal parentage in their state and provide individualized guidance as to their potential options. Self‐help through independent research is more accessible and would likely encourage more conscious planning of parenthood, a topic I have previously advocated as beneficial (Purvis, ).…”