Families built with the
assistance of reproductive technology are amazing miracles of medical
science. Children who might otherwise not be born are blessed with life
because of the pursuit of life for them by their parents. This technology
has also created new frontiers in family law.
A few recent events
reveal that the complexity of these miracles ought not be taken lightly.
In some states parents may contract with surrogates to (sometimes conceive and)
gestate and carry a baby to birth. In a recent case that started
with intended parents in Connecticut, a surrogate was offered $10,000
to terminate the contracted-for child when she was prenatally
diagnosed with some serious medical problems including a cleft palate, and
additional heart and brain issues. Making a decision not to
terminate the child forced the surrogate mother to move to Michigan where
surrogacy laws there would uphold her decisions to protect the child, who according
to CNN was born with birth defects and "an infectious
smile." Read that entire story here.
When two women who were married
in Iowa contracted for building a family through artificial reproductive
technology (ART) they sued for the right to both be named on the child's birth
certificate. Iowa's high court ruled that both same sex parents must be
listed on a birth certificate for a child of ART. No father is listed for
the child. Read that piece here.
A suggestion
for a law school graduation gift for a woman this year was a
paid contract for freezing her reproductive gametes. The thinking
was that because she'd be so busy building her career as an attorney she
wouldn't have time to build a family simultaneously; this gift would allow her
the best of both worlds - freshly frozen younger eggs available for use
after she made partner in her law firm. Read about that here. Wow.
The most
terrifying reproductive technology story in recent weeks, however, has to
be discovering that a man and his wife were created with the sperm of the same
donor father. You can read the husband's heart-wrenching
decision-making process in an advice column here.
Family building occurs with the
assistance of artificial reproductive technology, making miracles happen, yet
those miracles are not without moral and legal complexity. The law may
attempt to clarify the legal issues surrounding those decisions, but personal
and family vulnerability are guaranteed. Life may hang in the balance for
a child; a marriage may be jeopardized; a beautiful family may be created; but
moral decisions will not be absent. A restorative family mindset allows
these situations to be viewed in a new light - one most beneficial to all the
parties to protect their lives and their liberties, but one that also understands
that what is legally permissible may not always be the best
solution.
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