ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the moral rights of parents: reject absolutist and quasi-absolutist views of parental rights; respond to certain challenges to the existence and extent of the moral rights of parents. It offers an argument for the claim that parents do have moral rights with respect to their children; locate the argument within a stewardship view of parenthood; and examine the implications of this argument for issues in family life and public policy. Liberationism is a serious challenge to the legal and moral rights of parents. The chapter examines several issues related to public policy and the moral dimensions of the family, including parental licensing, child abuse, children divorcing their parents, the religious upbringing of children, education, and medical decision making, and then consider what implications the stewardship view has for these issues. Common sense and public policy recognize that the physical abuse of a child can constitute grounds for the termination of parental rights.
