What is it about?
Biomedicine, bioethics and the law dominate policy and practice in controversial methods of creating families through assisted reproductive technologies including cross-border reproductive care and surrogacy. This commentary discusses the ascendancy of ‘the right-to-parent’ lobby in global free markets where individualism, neo-liberal and neo-feminist perspectives, consumerism and porous state borders thrive and legislative frameworks only regulate risky practices well after they are established. It argues the need for social work to be a critical voice in ethical debates, a key contributor to national and international social policy and practice, and a leader in global child welfare matters.
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Why is it important?
This paper highlights where the gaps are in surrogacy research, how the interests of children are framed and suggest the understandingof what constitutes children's interests needs to broaden
Perspectives
This is a multi disciplinary field and social work's knowledge of children, families and reproductive technologies brings much to the table
Dr Patricia Fronek
Griffith University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The 'New Family' as an Emerging Norm: A Commentary on the Position of Social Work in Assisted Reproduction, The British Journal of Social Work, January 2014, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/bjsw/bct198.
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Resources
Legalising commercial surrogacy won't stop people going overseas
The Conversation, Australia
Perfecting adoption? Reflections on the rise of commercial offshore surrogacy and family formation in Australia
Cuthbert, D., & Fronek, P. (2014). Perfecting adoption? Reflections on the rise of commercial offshore surrogacy and family formation in Australia. In A. Hayes & D. Higgins (Eds.), Families, policy and the law: Selected essays on contemporary issues for Australia (pp. 55-66). Melbourne, Australia: Australian Institute of Family Studies.
‘This neo-natal ménage à trois’: British media framing of transnational surrogacy.
van den Akker, O., Fronek, P., Blyth, E., & Frith, L. (2015). ‘This neo-natal ménage à trois’: British media framing of transnational surrogacy. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 1-14. doi:10.1080/02646838.2015.1106454
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