First 'designer babies', now 'a la carte' parents

Dr Thérèse Callus School of Law University of Reading

Parenthood is and should be a question of individual choice: at least insofar as the decision to bear a child is concerned. But choice must surely be constrained once the act of procreation (be it medically assisted or 'traditional') gives rise to the birth of a child. English family law and policy bears this out. We only have to look at the obligation for a woman to be registered as the mother on her child's birth certificate or the imposition of financial responsibility on a non-resident parent. Yet recent judicial pronouncements and current legislative reform proposals appear to suggest that parental status itself may be dependent upon the mere intention of the would-be (wannabe?) parent. This is not wholly unprecedented. We have recognised the importance of intention in the process of adoption and more recently in the use of donated gametes in assisted conception techniques. However giving effect to intention has been circumscribed within the heterosexual model ideally of two parents to reflect the biological reality that a child is created by the fusion of male and female gametes. But the de-sexualisation of procreation through...

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