Birth Rights and Birth Wrongs Through a Common Law Lens: Why the No Liability Regime is Likely to Endure

Dov Fox’s recent book, the aptly named Birth Rights and Wrongs, is, as its title suggests, a study of the stark conflicts that arise in the highly contested area of reproductive rights. Fox makes the powerful case that the legal protection of reproductive rights, in all their protean forms, is systematically under-protected relative to two key benchmarks: the standards of ordinary decency, and social expectations. In my view, he has an acute awareness of these failures. But his greatest strength is also his greatest weakness, as he systematically ignores the great successes wrought through the current system, as disjointed as it might seem on first appearance.

Since these triumphs are not sufficiently accounted for, Fox fails to develop a general theory which explains how these technological advances are two-sided developments.