Defining the Family: Law, Technology, and Reproduction in An Uneasy Age - Hardcover

Dolgin, Janet L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814718590 ISBN 13: 9780814718599

Publisher: NYU Press, 1997

Synopsis

Defining the Family: Law, Technology, and Reproduction in an Uneasy Age provides a sweeping portrait of the family in American law from the nineteenth century to the present. The family today has come to be defined by individuality and choice. Pre-nuptial agreements, non-marital cohabitation, gay and lesbian marriages have all profoundly altered our ideas about marriage and family. In the last few years, reproductive technology and surrogacy have accelerated this process of change at a breathtaking rate. Once simple questions have taken on a dizzying complexity: Who are the real parents of a child? What are the relationships and responsibilities between a child, the woman who carried it to term, and the egg donor? Between viable sperm and the wife of a dead donor?
The courts and the law have been wildly inconsistent and indecisive when grappling with these questions. Should these cases be decided in light of laws governing contracts and property? Or it is more appropriate to act in the best interests of the child, even if that child is unborn, or even unconceived? No longer merely settling disputes among family members, the law is now seeing its own role expand, to the point where it is asked to regulate situations unprecedented in human history. Janet L. Dolgin charts the response of the law to modern reproductive technology both as it transforms our image of the family and is itself transformed by the tide of social forces.

About this title

About the Author

Janet L. Dolgin is the Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at Hofstra University School of Law in New York.

From the Back Cover

Today, the family has come to be defined by individuality and choice. Once simple questions have taken on a dizzying complexity: Who are the "real" parents of a child? What are the relationships and responsibilities between a child, the woman who carried it to term, and the egg donor? Between the child and the sperm donor? Between viable sperm and the wife of a dead donor? The courts and the law have been wildly inconsistent and indecisive when grappling with these questions. Should these cases be decided in light of laws governing contracts and property? Or is it more appropriate to act in the best interests of the child, even if that "child" is unborn, or even unconceived? No longer merely settling disputes between family members, the law is now seeing its own role expand, to the point where it is asked to regulate situations unprecedented in human history. Defining the Family: Law, Technology, and Reproduction in an Uneasy Age provides a sweeping portrait of the family in American law from the nineteenth century to the present. Janet Dolgin charts the response of the law to modern reproductive technology as it both transforms our image of the family and is itself transformed by the tide of social forces.

Edition details

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814718590
• ISBN 13: 9780814718599
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 287