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'Secrecy': what can artificial reproduction learn from adoption?
1Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Stirling, UK.
International Journal of Law and the Family
|January 1, 1988
Summary
Adoption and assisted reproduction face similar openness challenges. Direct application of adoption solutions to assisted reproduction may mask, not solve, issues related to parental knowledge and institutional ambivalence.
Area of Science:
- Reproductive Medicine
- Family Studies
- Social Sciences
Background:
- Comparisons are frequently drawn between adoptive families and families formed via assisted reproduction technologies (ART), such as sperm and egg donation.
- It is often suggested that challenges in ART concerning a child's knowledge of their genetic origins can be addressed by examining solutions within adoption practices.
- This paper critically evaluates these comparisons and the underlying assumptions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the claims that adoption can provide solutions for issues in artificial reproduction.
- To question the premise of directly applying adoption models to ART.
- To explore the persistent challenges within British adoption regarding openness.
Main Methods:
- Critical analysis of existing literature and practices in adoption and ART.
- Examination of legislative, administrative, and professional aspects of adoption openness.
- Theoretical argumentation regarding the transferability of 'solutions' between adoption and ART.
Main Results:
- Significant challenges and ambivalence persist within British adoption concerning openness at legislative, administrative, and professional levels.
- The institution of adoption itself harbors an underlying uneasiness that has not been fully resolved by moves towards greater openness.
- Attempts to make adoption more open have disguised rather than eliminated these underlying issues.
Conclusions:
- Extending 'solutions' from adoption to ART may similarly mask or disguise underlying ambivalence and ambiguities in ART practices.
- Adoption serves as a potentially useful precedent for ART, primarily by highlighting unresolved questions rather than offering direct solutions.
- Direct application of adoption models to artificial reproduction is cautioned against due to the unresolved nature of openness issues in both fields.