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Schrödinger’s Child: Non-identity and Probabilities in Reproductive Decision-Making

ISBN: 978-1-78560-783-7, eISBN: 978-1-78560-782-0

Publication date: 8 February 2016

Abstract

Derek Parfit’s non-identity problem calls into question the claims of both the state and individuals when they purport to act for the benefit of future children. This paper discusses how adoption of the non-identity argument as a legal argument could affect reproductive and family policy, demonstrating that it undermines the child-centric approach to assigning legal parentage. The paper concludes, however, that these non-identity problems can be solved by the expected value approach, which demonstrates that efforts to benefit future people can be logically coherent even if those efforts also affect the genetic identities of the future people.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Glenn Cohen, Maxine Eichner, Aya Gruber, Jill Hasday, Ahmed White, and Sean Williams for their comments on earlier versions of this paper, as well as to Emerging Family Law Scholars and Teachers, the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, the Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network, my colleagues at the University of Colorado Law School, and the other authors in this volume. My thanks and love also go to Mollie Foster, Ruth Schroeder, Alice Owens Johnson, Alice Witherspoon Ewing, and Betty Clark.

Citation

Hendricks, J.S. (2016), "Schrödinger’s Child: Non-identity and Probabilities in Reproductive Decision-Making", Special Issue: Feminist Legal Theory (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 69), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 221-251. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720160000069007

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited