3 - Parental Responsibility

Summary

Chapter 3 addresses the question of extending parental responsibility to social parents. Parental responsibility is an important mechanism through which to confer responsibilities and rights upon social parents. It is particularly useful in the context of same-sex parenting given that some gay and lesbian couples become parents in situations where the child was born to one of them as part of a previous heterosexual relationship. The extension of parental responsibility provides a mechanism whereby the partner or spouse of the parent can acquire responsibilities and rights towards the child in a manner that does not affect the status of the legal parents.