New Reproductive Technologies or Who's Your Mama?

This lesson covers emerging issues of assisted reproduction technologies. Most specifically, it explores issues of parental rights on both a constitutional and state level. Topics covered include artificial insemination, surrogacy, and the status of un-implanted pre-embryos when the parties disagree about implantation. It does not cover post-partum conception. The lesson includes the issue of lesbian partners when one provides the egg and the other is the gestational mother but it does not cover other issues of lesbian parenthood.

This lesson can be used for review or as background material for in depth class discussion.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Discuss the legal theories used when legal parentage of a child resulting from assisted reproductive technology is at issue.
2. Apply these theories to identify who is a "legal parent" in a variety of assisted reproduction cases.
3. Analyze the rights and responsibilities of parties to assisted reproduction cases.