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Foreword-Symposium: Surrogacy Legislation in California: Proposals and Commentary

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1994

Publication Title

University of San Francisco Law Review

Abstract

At the beginning of this year, I heard that scientists at Edinburgh University anticipated they would soon be able to graft ovarian tissue from aborted fetuses onto adult ovaries, thereby enabling otherwise sterile or postmenopausal recipients to conceive. This advance comes at a time when ova for use in in vitro fertilization are in short supply, even more so in Britain where donors are not paid. When I learned of this development, my normally quite tolerant sense of the natural was deeply distressed. I engaged a former law school classmate in an effort to thrash through the ethics of this latest scientific advance. I was surprised to learn that he affixed the label unnatural not to the harvesting of the ova, but to the ova's implantation in postmenopausal women-an aspect which struck me as eminently natural. As our differing perspectives blossomed into an argument, we each attempted to delimit and defend our respective positions.

Keywords

Surrogacy, Legislation, California

Publication Citation

Adrienne D. Davis, Foreword--Symposium: Surrogacy Legislation in California: Proposals and Commentary, 28 U.S.F.L. Rev. 572 (1994).

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