Reproductive Technologies and the Law

The world of assisted reproductive technologies is a relative newcomer to the law school curriculum, making its perceptible entrance only within the past two decades. Yet the discipline mixing law and assisted conception seems to have established firm roots, sustained by a nearly daily dose of activity somewhere around the globe. The study of reproductive technologies has branched out from its founding in the late 1970s with the introduction of in vitro fertilization, to a field that includes such emerging topics as posthumous reproduction, embryonic stem cell research and human cloning. These topics often take center stage in our political and social world, making them ideal for dissection in the law school classroom.

Reproductive Technologies and the Law is designed to introduce our students to the essentials in science, medicine, law and ethics that underpin and shape each of the topics that combine to form the law of reproductive technologies. As each new technology is introduced, an effort is made to fully inform the reader about the clinical application of the technique &emdash; that is, how the procedure is used to treat patients facing infertility or produce advances in medical research. Once comfortable with the science, students can then contemplate the legal parameters that do or should accompany the technology. Since so much of the law in this area is either nascent or wholly unformed, students are free, and indeed encouraged, to design legal systems that meet the needs of patients, parents, children and society at large &emdash; participants all in the world of assisted reproduction.