Baby Markets
Money and the New Politics of Creating Families
Edited by Michele Bratcher Goodwin
Editorial Reviews
"Michele Goodwin has done a masterful job of weaving together a wide range of contrasting points of view in law, policy, economics, and philosophy on the timely topic of Baby Markets in our contemporary post-Brave New World society. As a person who defends the interests of families after formation but who had only passing knowledge of reproductive technology and developments in marketing of component baby-making parts, I learned a great deal from this cutting-edge work."
—Diane L. Redleaf, Executive Director, Family Defense Center, Chicago Illinois
"Today children are conceived, born, and adopted in the marketplace - like it or not. By collecting a wide range of cutting-edge perspectives by leading experts on reproductive technologies, adoption, and economics, Baby Markets is an essential resource for understanding how these markets function as well as their profound implications for our society and the world."
—Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, University of Pennsylvania, author of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
"Baby Markets is a groundbreaking, must-read in today's growing era of adoption, surrogacy, and "non-traditional" families. Goodwin does an excellent job of integrating a broad array of authors and material in a manner that crystallizes the issues, and highlights the challenges and controversies involved. I have no doubt that Baby Markets will be increasingly and directly relevant in public policy decision-making and legal jurisprudence. The analysis of law and economics, social mores, parental rights, ethics and baby taboos should be required reading for anyone interested in the supply and demand for children in modern times."
—Steve P. Calandrillo, Charles I. Stone Professor of Law, University of Washington School of Law
"The family is not private, and contemporary baby markets in transnational adoption and artificial reproductive technologies underscore this fact. The question is not whether but how the law has supported the commodification of family and kinship--racial and gendered enterprises of taste and choice--and what can be done about it now. Goodwin's brave and eye-opening collection paves the way for an intelligent and ethical response."
—David L. Eng, University of Pennsylvania, author of The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy
"Financial considerations are becoming ever more important in adoption and new reproductive technologies. Is this good or bad? How will it change the way we think about babies and the way we think about families? Baby Markets brings together some of the best thinkers on these subjects, and creates a vibrant exchange of ideas. It is the volume one must read for this increasingly important and controversial topic."
—Brian H. Bix, Frederick W. Thomas Professor of Law & Philosophy, University of Minnesota
Goodwin's Baby Markets is indispensable reading for anyone interested in learning how something so basic as having a baby has been transformed by the intersection of commerce and technology. These essays illuminate the promise and perils of this new way of becoming a parent better than anything else that I have read."
—Rick Banks, Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
"A welcome entry to the important conversation about new ways of creating parenthood. This book gathers a stellar cast of scholars to consider the marketization of babies through ART, embryo and egg donation, international and transracial adoption. Recognizing that this train has already left the station, the authors analyze, in short and readable entries from a variety of perspectives, the economics of these new arrangements and revisit the question whether this commodification is an entirely unfortunate development--or whether, and how, harms associated with it may be controlled while allowing the benefits to infertile heterosexuals and to gays and lesbians who desire children."
—Cynthia Grant Bowman, Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Feminist Jurisprudence, Cornell Law School
"Baby Markets offers a radical critique of a cherished principle-that commodification devalues human life and is a moral affront. Unafraid to ask hard questions and challenge fundamental assumptions, the authors show us how the making and procuring of babies has become a multi-billion dollar industry deeply influenced by the wealth and social status of those seeking progeny. With equal parts economics and ethics, calculation and compassion, the essays in this volume provide a trove of insights that map a new field of study in a brilliant and provocative way."
—Eric A. Feldman, JD., Ph.D., Deputy Dean for International Affairs and Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
"Whoever said 'you don't choose your family' never read this book. Goodwin and the authors take us through riveting analyses of how law, technology, markets, and crime have functioned together or individually to shape, new constructions of families and, in some cases, destroy others. A must read!
—Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Professor of Law and Charles M. and Marion J. Kierscht Scholar, University of Iowa College of Law
"Baby Markets is an outstanding book. Professor Goodwin has gathered a group of the brightest legal minds to weigh in on subjects that strike at the very heart of our human existence. Through a provocative and far reaching exploration of how individuals construct families in the marketplace(s), this text provides critical insight into the politics of race, class, gender and sexuality. Moreover, the intersecting forces that frame Baby Markets in today's world: technology, policy, litigation, legislation, economics, transnationalism, identity, and desire, are explicated with remarkable clarity and rigor."
—Imani Perry, Professor, Center for African American Studies, and Faculty Associate, Program in Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University
"In Baby Markets, Professor Goodwin and her colleagues provide an unflinching account of the largely unregulated world of reproduction and adoption. They begin by exposing the vast extent of world markets for these services, expertly assessing their troubling racial and national implications. More surprisingly, several chapters suggest the possibilities these same markets hold for poverty-relief, equality, and justice. This varied collection is for anyone interested in the complicated and controversial world of 21st century family creation."
—Jill R. Horwitz, Professor of Law, UCLA