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This chapter analyzes how the vast majority of Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, reject both sperm donation and adoption as solutions to male infertility and childlessness. In the Arab countries, sperm donation is practiced only in Lebanon, but there, too, it meets with ardent resistance on the part of most men. The chapter narrates the story of Hasan, a police officer in southern Lebanon, who believes that he cannot regard a child conceived through donor sperm as his legitimate son. Hasan's reaction is not surprising in that assisted reproductive technologies evoke strong feelings about kinship. Of all of the anthropological work that has been written about the assisted reproductive technologies, the most substantial and most foundational is that which explores the effects of these technologies on kinship and family life.

Much research on IVF, assisted reproduction and gamete donation has centred on their medical, legal and socio-cultural processes and meanings. Here, quite frequently, little attention is paid to the donors themselves other than in the context of their selection. However, donation is a corporeal process in which body parts are produced and given or sold. This chapter analyses the bioprecarities that derive from the process of sperm donation. It draws on empirical online and social media materials, as well as other texts, in which men who donate sperm for the purposes of assisted reproduction articulate their sense of the meaning of this process, and further, considers responses to the revelation of sperm donation from people both known and unknown to the donor. These responses show how sperm donation as a form of intimate labour in which a man also parts with somatic material produced by his body, and involving negotiated journeys, is managed and talked about. In the chapter I argue that responses to sperm donation indicate deeply gendered views of reproductive intimate labour in which a sense of bioprecarity masks strongly gendered views of sexuality, intimacy, and reproduction.

This chapter explores the tragic story of Shaykh Ali—a story of a devout Muslim man struggling with his infertile body, his attitudes toward sperm donation, and his unrequited sexuality. Shaykh Ali suffers from a preventable form of male infertility—namely, uncorrected, undescended testicles—which have stopped him from being able to produce sperm. Not all Middle Eastern men are as religiously pious as Shaykh Ali, nor have they suffered the same physical and emotional pain. Nonetheless, Shaykh Ali's story speaks in a powerful way to many of the themes in this study; including the role of Islam in shaping the uses of assisted reproductive technologies, Muslim men's general unwillingness to consider sperm donation as a solution to male infertility, and emerging areas of dissonance and dissent to the prevailing religious discourse.

This chapter focuses on the legal regulation of the reproductive technology market, including the fertility clinics and gamete suppliers. For those seeking sperm, there are thousands of possibilities. In the United States alone, dozens of sperm banks are available as part of a business that accounts for about $75 million per year. The number of physicians offering assisted reproductive services has also increased exponentially. However, there is little guarantee about the safety of sperm that one buys, the eggs that are used, the success rate of fertility clinics, or that the embryo created with one's egg and her partner's sperm is the embryo that will be transferred into her body. The amount of market regulation at the state and federal levels with respect to reproductive technologies is limited. This chapter first provides a historical background on artificial insemination as a solution to infertility, along with the programs for both egg and sperm donation. It then discusses self-regulation in the reproductive technology industry before examining the laws that apply to sperm and egg donation.

This chapter considers the paternity of the fertile man who donates sperm so that an unmarried woman can conceive his child. The donor may be someone whom the woman knows or someone who makes a contribution to a sperm bank. Under most state statutes, the sperm donor is never acknowledged as the legal father of the child. The statutes do not make a distinction between known and anonymous sperm donors. However, in some states, the sperm donor may agree to be a father to the child. Courts will usually recognize these agreements. A sperm donor may also be recognized as the legal father of the child if he does not comply with the state's artificial insemination statute. States without statutes tend to treat known sperm donors differently from anonymous sperm donors. While anonymous sperm donors are generally protected from parental obligations, at least one court has recognized a known sperm donor as the legal father of the children created using his genetic material.

This chapter considers the paternity of the fertile man who donates sperm so that an unmarried woman can conceive his child. The donor may be someone whom the woman knows or someone who makes a contribution to a sperm bank. Under most state statutes, the sperm donor is never acknowledged as the legal father of the child. The statutes do not make a distinction between known and anonymous sperm donors. However, in some states, the sperm donor may agree to be a father to the child. Courts will usually recognize these agreements. A sperm donor may also be recognized as the legal father of the child if he does not comply with the state's artificial insemination statute. States without statutes tend to treat known sperm donors differently from anonymous sperm donors. While anonymous sperm donors are generally protected from parental obligations, at least one court has recognized a known sperm donor as the legal father of the children created using his genetic material.

This chapter considers the problematic and complicated status of legal regulation of three issues underlying assisted reproductive technology (ART) and other reproductive technologies: the market in gametes, the creation of familial relationships through ART, and the identity interests of the resulting children. It begins with an overview of the case of Brittany Johnson, the first to allow for breach of the promise of confidentiality to a sperm provider. It then considers other events reported in May 2006 involving human gametic material and the dilemmas of applying conflicting values to egg and sperm donation. It also discusses market regulation and relational regulation of gamete provision and argues that states should adopt legislation specifying the relationships resulting from gamete transfer. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of developing new legal approaches to the reproductive technology market that take into account the relationships between sperm and egg providers, recipients, children, and the state.

This chapter examines various issues relating to the nature of anonymity and identity disclosure in gamete provision. In particular, it considers the differing and often converging interests that donor children, their parents, their providers, the fertility clinics, and the state may have. It explores questions such as whether there should be disclosure of donor identity, and if so, under what circumstances; whether donors will still provide gametes if there is the possibility (or certainty) of disclosure; whether it is the children's right to know who provided their genes, or the parents' right to know or not to know; or whether parents are obliged to tell their children of their origins. The chapter also discusses the legal regime governing disclosure with regards to sperm donation and other reproductive technologies, as well as the primary challenges to anonymity that stem from outside the law.

Sperm donation was originally introduced in the name of a medical relief of infertility, and it was understood that it would ordinarily take place anonymously. The donor is in effect allowed to forgo the usual moral responsibility of parenthood, that of being a father with duties to his children. This chapter argues that was a mistake: a donor of sperm remains the biological father of the procreated child, even if society relieves him of that obligation. It should not do so. One reason for that judgment is that too often historically men have abandoned their procreated children, and this is simply another way of allowing them to do so. It is particularly strange that many feminists ignore that commonplace male reality and officially seem to bless it in this case. It is often argued that the essence of parenthood lies in the love of and commitment to a child, not in the biological relationship. Yet, the desire of a woman to use a sperm donor so that she can have a biologically related child assumes that the woman’s desire for the biological relationship is enough to ignore the relationship with the donor. There is a fundamental contradiction here about parenthood.

This chapter extends the discussion of surrogacy by focusing on how the people of Spey Bay thought about paying for bodily services and substances and what they felt this said about them as members of a community. People in Spey Bay do not think of money as inherently corrupting but hold individuals responsible for their own decisions about how they make and spend it. This chapter analyzes the views of the people of Spey Bay about blood, egg, and sperm donation in order to highlight the connections between community values and reproductive ethics, as well the circulation and meanings of money in their personal and professional lives. In doing so, it revisits questions about the contextual nature of ethics and the broad significance of reproduction in everyday life.

The chapter explores the state of reproductive rights in Israeli law. It follows the developments in this area of law, as shaped by the major role of the family in Israeli society and culture, as well as by the multicultural state of Israeli society (influenced by several sources, including Jewish religious values, national heritage and liberal values). More specifically, the chapter discusses abortion law and the regulation of in vitro fertilization and surrogacy, and points at the way the state of law in this area was shaped by both rights discourse and pragmatic compromises.

This chapter examines the implications of new reproductive technologies for legal parenthood and other areas of family law. It first considers egg and sperm donation before turning to a discussion of surrogacy. It then analyzes the issue of division of embryos created via in vitro fertilization in case of divorce or the death of either party and concludes by explaining the legal and social issues arising from posthumous reproduction, especially with regards to the question of what to do about children born from embryos created and implanted long after the biological father has died, or implanted in another woman after the biological mother's death.

This chapter examines the cultural and moral concerns arising from future regulation of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and other reproductive technologies, including the potential of ART to challenge the traditional two-parent heterosexual family and the ability of technology to allow parents to engage in prenatal screening. Four main issues are addressed: the ability of reproductive technology to allow for only one legal parent; the unavailability of reproductive technology to certain socioeconomic classes; the concern that beneficiaries of reproductive technology are playing God by altering natural reproduction; and the way reproductive technologies are intertwined with more controversial issues such as cloning and stem cell research. The chapter takes into account a variety of religious, historical, and philosophical objections with different aspects of reproductive technology, from preimplantation genetic diagnosis to the moral status of embryos and embryos as property. It also considers how domestic and foreign courts and legislatures have addressed reproductive technology issues and concludes by analyzing the power of private contracts in agreements involving sperm donation and surrogacy.

This chapter examines the cultural and moral concerns arising from future regulation of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and other reproductive technologies, including the potential of ART to challenge the traditional two-parent heterosexual family and the ability of technology to allow parents to engage in prenatal screening. Four main issues are addressed: the ability of reproductive technology to allow for only one legal parent; the unavailability of reproductive technology to certain socioeconomic classes; the concern that beneficiaries of reproductive technology are playing God by altering natural reproduction; and the way reproductive technologies are intertwined with more controversial issues such as cloning and stem cell research. The chapter takes into account a variety of religious, historical, and philosophical objections with different aspects of reproductive technology, from preimplantation genetic diagnosis to the moral status of embryos and embryos as property. It also considers how domestic and foreign courts and legislatures have addressed reproductive technology issues and concludes by analyzing the power of private contracts in agreements involving sperm donation and surrogacy.

The development of assisted-reproductive technologies sharpened perceptions of the differences among three major criteria for parental status—biological (genetics and gestation), volition/intention, and caregiving/functional. This chapter surveys the development of these justifications. It argues that of these, caregiving—and the underlying philosophic framework of the ethics of care—is the most satisfactory grounding of parental status for three reasons: first, it places relationship at the centre of its theoretical and practical concerns; second, caregiving focuses attention on the child; and third, thinking about relationships of care ensures that we consider the impact of social factors, such as race and class, on reproduction and family formation. But despite its strengths, this chapter concludes that caregiving is not fully satisfactory for grounding recognition of a parent–child relationship. It advocates a pluralistic account that regards the relationships established by all three criteria, as significant to both social and legal groundings of parental status.

This chapter examines how the law has responded to the families created through adoption as well as embryo, egg, and sperm donation. It also considers how judicial and legislative interpretations of the implications of reproductive technologies have affected the traditional significance of genetic and marital relationships. The chapter begins by introducing the reader to parentage rights in the United States before turning to a discussion of early cases that struggled with whether children born through gamete provision were “legitimate” or whether the mother had committed adultery. It then reviews relevant laws such as the Uniform Parentage Act, which recognizes the rights of single people to use artificial reproductive technology. Finally, it explores legal issues surrounding parentage and legitimacy, inheritance, incest, artificial insemination, and nonmarital children.

Berkman’s political group increasingly saw armed struggle as the way to revolutionary activity. Agreeing to help a lesbian comrade, Zeller asked Berkman to donate his sperm. Nine months later Judy Clark’s daughter Harriet was born. Berkman’s role in her creation was kept secret. Barbara Zeller moved to Chicago to do more solidarity political work with militant Puerto Rican groups, as their daughter Sarah moved back and forth. And then Berkman began a relationship to his comrade Dana Biberman.

It is commonly believed that parents have special responsibilities toward their children—weightier duties than they owe other children. How these responsibilities are acquired, however, is not well understood. This is problematic when claims about parental responsibilities are challenged—for example, when people deny that they are morally responsible for their biological offspring. This chapter presents a theory of the origins of parental responsibilities that can resolve such cases of disputed moral parenthood and applies it to the cases of accidental fathers and gamete donation. According to this conventional-acts account, parental duties are taken on by individuals through voluntary acts whose meaning is determined by social convention.