| Description |
xxii, 276 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
1. Becoming an Adoptive Parent. From Boston to Lima. The Adoption Process -- 2. Parenting Options for the Infertile: The Biologic Bias. Shaping Women and Their Choices. The Infertility Problem. Making Adoption the Last Resort. Correcting the Bias -- 3. Adoption: Tales of Loss and Visions of Connection. The Child Who Had to Be Returned. A Vision of Adoption's Potential. A Snapshot of Adoption's Realities -- 4. Adoption and the Sealed Record System. "I'm Going to Get Another Mummy" Traditions and Trends. The Current Debate. The Mixed Messages Inherent in a Move to Openness -- 5. Adoption and the Parental Screening System. On Being Screened for Fitness. Assessing the System's Fitness. The Role of Money. Limits of the Current Reform Debate. An Alternative Vision. Eliminating the Current Screen. What Children Have to Gain. What Children Have to Lose -- 6. Adoption and Race. Early Fragments from One Transracial Adoption Story. The History. Current Racial Matching Policies. |
|
The Impact of Current Policies. The Empirical Studies. The Law. Directions for the Future -- 7. Adoption Among Nations. Scenes from the World of International Adoption. Current Significance and Future Prospects. The Role of Law. National Laws and Policies. International Law and the Hague Convention. Of Real Problems and Mythical Concerns. Directions for the Future -- 8. Adoption and Stigma. The Tradition: Blood Is Thicker than Water. New Sources of Stigma: Of Roots and the Tragic Triangle. The Studies: Of Modern-Day Myths and Realities -- 9. High-Tech Reproduction: In Vitro Fertilization and Its Progeny. A Woman Obsessed. An Abbreviated Picture of the IVF Treatment Process. A Rough Cost-Benefit Calculation. IVF's Regulatory Status: Variations on a Free Market Theme. Directions for the Future -- 10. Modern Child Production: The Marketing of Genes, Wombs, Embryos, and Babies. |
| Summary |
In Family Bonds, Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Bartholet raises profound questions about the meaning of family and the way society shapes options for the infertile. Illumined by the author's compelling personal story, the book challenges the societal policies that help shape adoption, infertility treatment, surrogacy, and other new parenting arrangements. Family Bonds will encourage and enlighten all who struggle with infertility and the decision whether to pursue treatment, adoption, or other parenting options. It will compel the attention of doctors, lawyers, child welfare workers, and policymakers. |
|
In her poignant and controversial book, Bartholet examines policies that leave children without homes and would-be parents without children. She questions the wisdom of driving women to spend years in infertility treatment while pushing them away from adoption. She talks about transracial and transnational families, single and older-parent families. She forces us to think about our goals for the family of the future. Uniquely qualified to write this book, Bartholet is a recognized expert on civil rights and family law who has raised one child born to her, endured her own struggle with infertility, and recently adopted as a single parent two children born in Peru. |
| Subject |
Adoption -- United States.
|
|
Adoption -- Law and legislation -- United States.
|
|
Intercountry adoption -- United States.
|
|
Intercountry adoption -- Law and legislation -- United States.
|
| ISBN |
0395510856 21.95 |
|
9780395510858 |
|
