Ethics: Does Blood Kinship Matter?

Just as we were ending a show recently, someone called to ask a question about the relationship between natural or biological parenting and adoption. The brunt of the question was whether there is anything “more real” about blood relationships than about those made voluntarily and legally. Knowing that we were out of time, I avoided the question because the implications are significant and because it warrants a much more extended treatment. So tonight on the show, I thought we could talk through the question and try to figure out whether parent/child relationships are entirely a matter of what we do (meaning that adoptive and biological are the same, depending for their status on behavior) or if there is also some component of natural or blood connection (meaning that there is some fundamental difference between adoptive and biological parents based on essence or ontology).