Test Tube Families: Why the Fertility Market Needs Legal Regulations
This book focuses on the dilemmas of applying conflicting values to egg and sperm donation, arguing that the law must develop an integrated approach to the otherwise distinct aspects of technology, families, markets, and relationships. The thesis of this book is that sperm and egg donors are not simply selling “spare” body parts but are instead providing hope to recipients, genetic identity to the resulting children, and profits within the marketplace.
This book argues that private regulation has not responded to these competing demands, and it examines the historical circumstances that brought about the current lackadaisical approach to legal regulation of the gamete market. This book concludes that the government, both at the federal and state levels, must regulate the gamete donor process. This book identifies four outcomes that these governmental regulations must achieve: (1) adequate protection of donors against exploitation; (2) delivery to recipients of the promised “goods”; (3) guaranteed access of children to their genetic information; and (4) market efficiency.