Gamete donation and parental responsibility.
Unlike surrogacy and cloning, reproduction via gamete donation is widely assumed to be morally unproblematic. Recently, a number of authors have argued that this assumption is mistaken: gamete donors, they claim, have parental responsibilities that they typically treat too lightly. In this paper I argue that the 'parental neglect' case against gamete donation fails. I begin by examining and rejecting the view that gamete donors have parental responsibilities; I claim that none of the current accounts of parenthood provides good reason for ascribing parenthood to gamete donors. I then argue that even if gamete donors do have parental responsibilities for 'their' children, it is not clear that they treat these responsibilities too lightly. I conclude the paper by examining the wider question of just what kind of responsibilities gamete donors might have towards the children that they have a role in creating.
Bayne
Tim
T
Philosophy Department, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia. tbayne@scmp.mq.edu.au
D033001:Directed Tissue Donation; D005260:Female; D005854:Germ Cells; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D028681:Moral Obligations; D010067:Ownership; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents; D012098:Reproduction / Q000941:ethics*; D014019:Tissue Donors / Q000941:ethics*