Guest Editors’ Introduction to Special Issue on Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART)

• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Author: Stephen Page,Gary A. Debele
• Date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12548

SPECIAL ISSUE: ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY (ART)

GUEST EDITORS’INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE ON ASSISTED

REPRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY (ART)

Gary A. Debele and Stephen Page

On behalf of my co-guest editor Stephen Page and myself, we are pleased to introduce this spe-

cial issue of the Family Court Review addressing the timely and important topic of Assisted Repro-

duction Technology (ART). Both Stephen and I are fellows in the Academy of Adoption and

Assisted Reproduction Attorneys and the International Academy of Family Law Attorneys and have

law practices signif‌icantly involved in family formation issues. We think of family formation using

ART as the creation of families outside of traditional biological conception through sexual inter-

course, typically with the use of medical procedures such as artif‌icial insemination, in vitro fertiliza-

tion and frequently the involvement of third parties such as gestational and traditional surrogates

and donors of all varieties of genetic material. Our typical clients are persons who are experiencing

infertility challenges or who are in relationships with partners that are not biologically conducive to

family formation through sexual intercourse. Yet all of these individuals desperately want to build

families despite those medical challenges and biological limitations.

Building families through adoption has been around for centuries, and indeed, was even known

to exist in the Roman Empire. Up until recent decades and the astounding scientif‌ic advances in the

f‌ield of reproductive medicine, adoption was really the only option available for family formation

when individuals were, for whatever reason, not able to or not willing to create a family through

sexual intercourse. In recent times, adoption has experienced substantial challenges on account of

legal and demographic developments. Legal challenges and changing cultural mores have made

international adoption more diff‌icult and domestic adoptions have suffered from a dearth of children

–infants in particular –available for adoption. There has long been a bit of stigma attached to

adoption as not being the equivalent of having a child with a genetic and biological connection to

the adopting parent. ART has entered the world of family formation as an increasingly feasible pro-

cess to address these concerns.

ART is a complex legal, ethical, medical, and psychological process. Given that ART is a rela-

tively new area of law, legal practices and procedures are constantly evolving and developing. The

legal process of ART involves drafting complex contracts, often several in any given family forma-

tion process, and also various court proceedings replete with always changing substantive laws and

procedural requirements. When we include procedures that implicate multiple states, provinces and

countries, the complexities increase exponentially. Family formation through ART implicates diver-

gent ethical and religious perspectives, evidenced by the great diversity in the legal regulations of

these processes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and the differing views from one faith community

to another. Medical and scientif‌ic advances in the f‌ield of infertility and reproductive medicine are

truly mind-boggling, presenting ongoing challenges for practitioners in this f‌ield to stay current.

Practitioners have only relatively recently begun to focus on the emotional and mental health

Corresponding: stephen@pageprovan.com.au

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 59 No. 1, January 2021 7–8, doi: 10.1111/fcre.12548

© 2021 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts