Swedish Chapter

• The Swedish chapter of this Handbook aims to summarize and critically analyze relevant law and practice in Sweden as of early 2024 concerning social parenthood, a topic being investigated in light of EU-level efforts to harmonize or otherwise minimize discrimination against certain EU citizens, be they parents or children, due to the social instead of traditional biological basis of their parent-child relationship.It analyzes the Swedish legal concepts of parenthood, family, social parenthood and de facto parenthood, how parenthood is established (by automatic operation of Swedish law, by consent or intention such as in situations of confirmation of parentage, adoption, and medically-assisted reproduction) as well as ways that current law and its application, including in cross-border cases such as those in which recognition of foreign-issued parenthood-related documents is sought, can lead to discrimination and its negative consequences for children and parents.    As the Handbook's Policy Recommendations explain,"Social parenthood is an umbrella term used to describe the relationship between a person assuming parental status or parental responsibility anda child, in the absence of a genetic, biological, and gestational contribution between the former and the latter. The category includes all forms offiliation resulting from the various types of adoption, including stepchildadoption, as well as filiation resulting from donor-gamete-based medically-assisted reproduction, medically-assisted procreation (MAP) using acouple’s own gametes, surrogacy, post-mortem procreation (use of gametes after a natural parent’s death), adoption of embryos, and heterologousMAP by mistake (switched gametes at the lab resulting in a child not biologically related to the intended parents)."Social parenthood further includes functional/de facto parenthoodby adults in actual parenting roles with a child and parenthood foundedon informed consent more generally. In the free-movement context, itincludes cases in which certain countries provide legal status to a parentchild relationship while in other states the parent and child are treated as“legal strangers”."By including the concept of social parenthood in legal regulation of thefamily, such legal harms can be avoided and more emphasis can be placedon what is central for the child: enduring care for the development of theidentity of the child, in coordination with the document “EU strategyon the rights of the child”. The approach is supported by research findings from the studied jurisdictions that document existing rules of domestic law aimed at the preservation of a social parent-child relationship, thatis to say a non-biological status filiationis for the protection of the bestinterest of the child. The term is highly relevant to EU legal developmentbecause it includes both the above-described non-biologically-based formsof parenthood/filiation based on national law and the filiation status thatcirculates between EU Member States and in cross-border cases between EU and non-EU countries." 

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Juridik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Law (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Juridik -- Juridik och samhälle (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Law -- Law and Society (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Juridik -- Juridik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Law -- Law (hsv//eng)

Keyword

social parenthood

family law

EU family law

parentage regulation

LGBTQ families

comparative family studies

EU law

föräldraskap

familjerätt

komparativ familjerätt

socialt föräldraskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)