Statutory and case law governing the practice of third-party reproduction

Abstract

Louise Brown's birth in 1978 ushered in a new era in both reproductive medicine and law. Before then, reproductive law focused largely on contraception and abortion-related concerns, and parentage legislation focused on parent-child status and ensuring child support obligations for parents regardless of whether children were born in or out of wedlock. IVF was virtually unheard of and technologies that now make frozen embryos, donor eggs, gestational surrogacy, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis possible were not yet developed. As assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) continue to radically alter the ways in which our society creates families, the legal frameworks that regulate them and attempt to secure the families they help create are being challenged. This chapter provides an overview of the statutory and case law that has developed around or impacts upon third-party reproduction in ART.