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Full-Text Articles in Law
Obergefell’S Ambiguous Impact On Legal Parentage, Leslie Joan Harris
Obergefell’S Ambiguous Impact On Legal Parentage, Leslie Joan Harris
Chicago-Kent Law Review
For more than thirty years, the central questions of the law of parentage have been when and to what extent determinations of legal parenthood should be based on biological relationship, marriage to a child’s biological parent, or functioning as or intending to be a parent. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court endorsed the claim that children whose parents are married are better off socially and legally than nonmarital children; its language could easily be taken to support legal rules that encourage or prefer childrearing within marriage. On the other hand, the Court’s argument assumes that the same-sex couple—both members—are …
Quacking Like A Duck? Functional Parenthood Doctrine And Same-Sex Parents, Katharine K. Baker
Quacking Like A Duck? Functional Parenthood Doctrine And Same-Sex Parents, Katharine K. Baker
Chicago-Kent Law Review
This Article unpacks the relationship between the functional parenthood doctrine, constitutionally protected parental autonomy rights and intent-to-parent tests as they are applied in same-sex parenting relationships. It argues that, with the advent of same-sex marriage and second parent adoption, the functional parent doctrine is unnecessary and ultimately counterproductive to anyone interested in expanding legal recognition of non-traditional family forms. The functional parent doctrine asks courts to employ traditional understandings of parenthood (“Who acted like a parent?”) in assigning parental status.
These traditional understandings are usually, if not inevitably, dyadic, heteronormative, genetic, and gendered. In practice, the functional parent doctrine undermines …
Reforming The Processes For Challenging Voluntary Acknowledgments Of Paternity, Jeffrey A. Parness, David A. Saxe
Reforming The Processes For Challenging Voluntary Acknowledgments Of Paternity, Jeffrey A. Parness, David A. Saxe
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Voluntary acknowledgements of paternity (VAPs) significantly determine male legal parentage at birth for many children born of sex to unwed mothers in the United States. VAP processes are chiefly dictated by the federal Social Security Act, which places certain mandates on states participating in federally-subsidized welfare programs. These processes include norms on effective VAP establishments and on VAP disestablishments, either via early rescissions (within sixty days) by signatories or via later contests (after sixty days) by challengers, including signatories. The norms are driven by the Act’s desire to increase reimbursements of state child welfare payments from unwed fathers regardless of …
Bionormativity And The Construction Of Parenthood, Katharine K. Baker
Bionormativity And The Construction Of Parenthood, Katharine K. Baker
All Faculty Scholarship
This piece explores the relationship between legal and biological parenthood. It examines how neither history, nor evolutionary biology nor moral philosophy dictate a legal regime in which parenthood must be based on biological connection, but that attraction to a biological (or “bionormative”) regime remains strong. In explaining why, it suggests that much of what attracts people to bionormativity is not biology itself, but the way in which a biological regime constructs parenthood as a private, exclusive and binary enterprise. It is these ancillary qualities of bionormativity that people may care the most about. Today, a variety of forces put pressure …
Bionormativity And The Construction Of Parenthood, Katharine K. Baker
Bionormativity And The Construction Of Parenthood, Katharine K. Baker
Katharine K. Baker
This piece explores the relationship between legal and biological parenthood. It examines how neither history, nor evolutionary biology nor moral philosophy dictate a legal regime in which parenthood must be based on biological connection, but that attraction to a biological (or “bionormative”) regime remains strong. In explaining why, it suggests that much of what attracts people to bionormativity is not biology itself, but the way in which a biological regime constructs parenthood as a private, exclusive and binary enterprise. It is these ancillary qualities of bionormativity that people may care the most about. Today, a variety of forces put pressure …