Law and the complexities of parenting: parental status and parental function

Abstract

In this paper we explore three types of parental relationships which have grown in importance over the course of the last quarter of a century. Our object is to explore the extent to which assisted reproduction parents, same-sex parents and step-parents, assist us in our reconsiderations of the legal status of parents and of the responsibilities that they fulfil in law. We argue that thinking about these parental types will encourage us to embrace a formal fragmentation of parental status. This in turn will help us to restore clarity to the concept of parental responsibility and address the need to create legal hierarchies of parental status for children. It will also cause us to reconsider the extent and uniformity of the legal consequences of parental status.