Overview
The birth of the first test tube baby in 1978 focused attention on the sweeping advances in assisted reproductive technology (ART), which is now a multi-billion-dollar business in the United States. Sperm and eggs are bought and sold in a market that has few barriers to its skyrocketing growth. While ART has been an invaluable gift to thousands of people, creating new families, the use of someone else’s genetic material raises complex legal and public policy issues that touch on technological anxiety, eugenics, reproductive autonomy, identity, and family structure. How should the use of gametic material be regulated? Should recipients be able to choose the “best” sperm and eggs? Should a child ever be able to discover the identity of her gamete donor? Who can claim parental rights? Naomi R. Cahn explores these issues and many more in Test Tube Families, noting that although such questions are fundamental to the new reproductive technologies, there are few definitive answers currently provided by the law, ethics, or cultural norms. As a new generation of ""donor kids"" comes of age, Cahn calls for better regulation of ART, exhorting legal and policy-making communities to cease applying piecemeal laws and instead create legislation that sustains the fertility industry while simultaneously protecting the interests of donors, recipients, and the children that result from successful transfers.
Full Product Details
Author: Naomi R. Cahn
Publisher: New York University Press
Imprint: New York University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.30cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.544kg
ISBN: 9780814716823
ISBN 10: 0814716822
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 01 January 2009
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
Cahn explores the relationships that underpin artificial reproductive technology: parenting, donating, and becoming (those who are the children brought to life through this process).... Much about assisted reproduction are the relationships that are fostered and challenged by the use of the technology, whether donor to potential parent, potential parent to state, surrogate to intended mother, or embryo to clinic, and after it is all 'done,' child to parent. MICHELE GOODWIN, author of Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts
Author Information
Naomi Cahn is John Theodore Fey Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. Her previous books include Red Families v. Blue Families, Test Tube Families (NYU Press 2009), Families By Law: An Adoption Reader (NYU Press 2004), and Confinements: Fertility and Infertility in Contemporary Culture.
