 By the time neglect or abuse has reached the point that the state intervenes, irreparable damage has often been caused, and the actions that can be taken to improve a child’s situation are likely to be limited. Some philosophers argue that prospective parents should be screened ahead of time for their ability to parent and those who are deemed unlikely to be able to fulfill their parental responsibilities should not be granted parental licenses. The argument in favor of licensing parents may appeal primarily to the harms to children that occur if unfit people are allowed to parent (LaFollette 1980, 2010) or to the wider impact on society from rearing children who are unlikely to become good citizens (McFall 2009). Either way proposals for parental licensing schemes must show that it is possible prospectively to identify individuals who are likely to be neglectful or abusive parents with sufficient accuracy, show that the schemes do not violate the rights of prospective parents (on this see Liao 2015), and explain how they are to be enforced. The latter is perhaps the hardest challenge: without resorting to compulsory sterilization how can people be prevented from having children without licenses? (McFall 2009, 122) Of course, there could be penalties for unlicensed parents, or their children could be subject to confiscation, but such policies risk inadvertently penalizing the children they were intended to assist. Moreover, enforcement would disproportionately burden women. As gestators, women might be subjected to de facto forced abortions; women are also more likely to be primary caregivers, and thus subjected to greater interference and monitoring (Engster 2010). A further question is whether onerous licensing policies for adoptive parents can be justified in the absence of more general parental licensing schemes (McLeod and Botterell 2014).