Family-Making Contemporary Ethical Challenges

Françoise Baylis is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy at Dalhousie University, Canada, and founder of the NovelTechEthics research team. She is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Her research interests are many and varied, and she has a love of thought-provoking questions. Her publications on the ethics of assisted human reproduction and human embryo research span more than thirty years. In addition to her academic research on reproductive ethics, she contributes to national policy via government research contracts, membership on national committees, and public education. This work--all of which is informed by a strong commitment to the common good--focuses largely on issues of social justice. Her website is http://noveltechethics.ca. Her blog is http://impactethics.ca.

Carolyn McLeod is Associate Professor of Philosophy, an Affiliate Member of Women's Studies and Feminist Research, and a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. Her research interests lie at the intersection of health care ethics, feminist theory, and moral theory. She has had a long-standing interest in reproductive ethics, beginning with her book, Self-Trust and Reproductive Autonomy (MIT Press, 2002). She has published on various topics in this area, including reproductive autonomy, the commodification of women's reproductive labour, and conscientious refusals by health care professionals to provide reproductive health services such as abortions. Recently, her knowledge of the ethics of having children has broadened to include issues that concern adoption. Her website is http://carolynmcleod.com.

Introduction, Francoise Baylis and Carolyn McLeod
Families: Of Parents and Children 15
1. The Goods of Parenting, Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift
2. The Goods of Childhood and Children's Rights, Samantha Brennan
Bionormativity: Philosophical and Empirical Perspectives
3. A Critique of the Bionormative Concept of the Family, Charlotte Witt
4. The Families of Assisted Reproduction and Adoption, Lucy Blake, Martin Richards, and Susan Golombok
Becoming a Parent: Personal Choices
5. What is the Value of Procreation?, Christine Overall
6. The Unique Value of Adoption, Tina Rulli
Becoming a Parent: State Interests
7. State Regulation and Assisted Reproduction: Balancing the Interests of Parents and Children, Jurgen De Wispelaere and Daniel Weinstock
8. 'Not for the Faint of Heart': Assessing the Status Quo on Adoption and Parental Licensing, Carolyn McLeod and Andrew Botterell
9. On Non-Biological Maternity, or 'My Daughter is Going to be a Father!', Julie Crawford
Special Responsibilities of Parents
10. Special Responsibilities of Parents Using Technologically Assisted Reproduction, James Lindemann Nelson
11. Adoptee Vulnerability and Post-Adoptive Parental Obligation, Mianna Lotz
12. The Political Geography of Whites Adopting Black Children in the United States, Heath Fogg Davis
Contested Practices
13. Geneticizing the Desire to Know: Analogies to Adoption in Arguments Against Anonymous Gamete Donation, Kimberly Leighton
14. Transnational Commercial Contract Pregnancy in India, Francoise Baylis
15. Aged Parenting Through ART and Other Means, Jennifer A. Parks