The Law Debates the Family: Reproductive Transformations

Within the past few decades, unprecedented changes in the available means of human reproduction have made it possible to separate reproduction from sexuality, to distribute the tasks of biological maternity among different women, and to manipulate the spatial and temporal dimensions of reproduction. These possibilities challenge traditional assumptions about the facts of every stage of human reproduction: sexual intercourse, conception, gestation and birth. In addition, the new reproductive technologies confront traditional understandings of the family with novel familial constellations, which are not necessarily grounded in biological processes as firmly as old-fashioned family groups.