Family Bonds

In this powerful book, Elizabeth Bartholet attempts to make sense of the worlds of adoption and fertility treatment by combining a moving personal narrative with compelling policy analysis.Family Bondsis conveniently available at a time when more children than ever are waiting to be adopted and when infertility treatment is becoming an increasingly popular, sophisticated, and expensive technology.

Elizabeth Bartholet, author of Family Bonds (Beacon / 2803-7 / $17.00 pb), has been a professor at Harvard Law School since 1977. She writes, lectures, and consults widely on issues involving child welfare, adoption, and reproductive technology. The mother of three boys, two of them adopted from Peru, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Preface

ix

Introduction

xvii

Becoming an Adoptive Parent

1

(23)

From Boston to Lima

1

(14)

The Adoption Process

15

(9)

Parenting Options for the Infertile: The Biologic Bias

24

(15)

Shaping Women and Their Choices

24

(5)

The Infertility Problem

29

(1)

Making Adoption the Last Resort

30

(5)

Correcting the Bias

35

(4)

Adoption: Tales of Loss and Visions of Connection

39

(12)

The Child Who Had to Be Returned

39

(5)

A Vision of Adoption's Potential

44

(4)

A Snapshot of Adoption's Realities

48

(3)

Adoption and the Sealed Record System

51

(11)

``I'm Going to Get Another Mummy"

51

(2)

Traditions and Trends

53

(4)

The Current Debate

57

(1)

The Mixed Messages Inherent in a Move to Openness

58

(4)

Adoption and the Parental Screening System

62

(24)

On Being Screened for Fitness

62

(8)

Assessing the System's Fitness

70

(3)

The Role of Money

73

(1)

Limits of the Current Reform Debate

74

(2)

An Alternative Vision

76

(2)

Eliminating the Current Screen

78

(2)

What Children Have to Gain

80

(1)

What Children Have to Lose

81

(5)

Adoption and Race

86

(32)

Early Fragments from One Transracial Adoption Story

86

(8)

The History

94

(1)

Current Racial Matching Policies

95

(4)

The Impact of Current Policies

99

(2)

The Empirical Studies

101

(5)

The Law

106

(4)

Directions for the Future

110

(8)

Adoption Among Nations

118

(46)

Scenes from the World of International Adoption

118

(23)

Current Significance and Future Prospects

141

(2)

The Role of Law

143

(2)

National Laws and Policies

145

(4)

International Law and the Hague Convention

149

(1)

Of Real Problems and Mythical Concerns

150

(10)

Directions for the Future

160

(4)

Adoption and Stigma

164

(23)

The Tradition: Blood Is Thicker than Water

165

(6)

New Sources of Stigma: Of Roots and the Tragic Triangle

171

(3)

The Studies: Of Modern-Day Myths and Realities

174

(13)

High-Tech Reproduction: In Vitro Fertilization and Its Progeny

187

(31)

A Woman Obsessed

187

(11)

An Abbreviated Picture of the IVF Treatment Process

198

(3)

A Rough Cost-Benefit Calculation

201

(8)

IVF's Regulatory Status: Variations on a Free Market Theme

209

(4)

Directions for the Future

213

(5)

Modern Child Production: The Marketing of Genes, Wombs, Embryos, and Babies

218

(19)

Afterword

230

(7)

Notes

237

(30)

Index

267

(10)

Acknowledgments

277

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Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials