ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on unsuccessful conceptions of parenthood. A conception of parenthood is unsuccessful if it generates neither parental rights nor parental obligations. Numerous conceptions of parenthood have been offered that fail as accounts of the rights and obligations of parents. Both historical and contemporary philosophers have advocated proprietarian conceptions of parenthood. On such a view of parenthood, children are the property of their parents. The proprietarian believes that parents own their children. Page argues that the reason that infants belong to their natural parents is that a necessary connection exists between parental rights and natural parenthood. Edgar Page also discusses proprietarianism in his argument in favor of the existence of parental rights. The genetic-biological conception of parenthood involves the claim that the genetic connection between parent and child grounds the parental rights and obligations of that parent. Gestation-biological conceptions of parenthood include an important role for the gestational mother.
