Negotiating the making of new types of parents, families, and family relations: an empirically informed normative analysis

Connection websites, speed dating events and advertisements offer new ways of family creation for people looking for donor sperm or eggs or for co-parents for their future children. Users of these media make their own arrangements concerning conception and upbringing of children and can come to many different arrangements. This study will provide insight into the structure of these new families and the different types of co-parents that are created. We will analyse criteria for parenthood (what makes a person a parent?) and develop new concepts of parenthood with related parental responsibilities. This study will contribute to a coherent framework of principles and theories based on a literature study and a normative analysis, and informed by an interview study with users of these websites and events, of how parenthood is negotiated among users of these new ways of family building.