Parental Rights Doctrine: Creating and Maintaining Maternal Value 1

Abstract

This chapter explores the maternal value in and political value of the parental rights doctrine. It illustrates that the parental rights doctrine is matrifocal in that the biological work of gestation and birth provides the model for parenthood and a person's relationship to the mother or child determines parental status. The chapter explores the nature of the parent child relationship and the political and moral roles it plays in our constitutional system. This exploration into the legal contours of the parental rights doctrine is designed to provide a foundation for the remainder of this chapter. Although the practical benefits of the parental rights doctrine may appear as barriers to those who would revise the construction and permeability of families, the chapter returns to the political purpose of the parental rights doctrine to illustrate how diminishing family privacy will undermine such core liberal values as moral autonomy, pluralism, and equality.