 Legal, social, and biological parenthood can be conceptually distinguished; however, parenthood is arguably fundamentally a moral relationship, and its moral grounds and obligations should be considered in resolving the borderline cases. Moral parenthood is possession of moral parental rights and responsibilities. These may differ in content from legal rights and responsibilities—we might think parents morally ought to do more than they are legally required to do, for example. The moral grounds for assigning parental rights can also differ from their legal assignment. Of course, legal assignment of parenthood may trigger moral obligations, due to a general moral obligation to obey the law or because the legal parent is best-placed to rear the child. But moral theories of parenthood give independent grounds for parental rights, on the basis of which particular legal arrangements may be criticized.