Deborah Zalesne*
As rapidly developing reproductive technologies offer new pathways to parenthood, marriage and parenthood have become increasingly separated, and biology and parenthood no longer go hand in hand. With the advent of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), providing alternative methods for people to have children when it is otherwise impossible or infeasible for them to do so naturally, a growing number of parents are not actually biologically related to their children, and even when they are, a growing number of parents have had their children with outside medical assistance.
*Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law. LL.M., Temple University School of Law; J.D., University of Denver College of Law; B.A., Williams College. A related variation of this article was presented at the 2015 AALS Annual Meeting, Section on Contracts Panel (Mind the Gap: Contracts, Technology, and Legal Gaps). I would like to thank the panel moderator, Nancy Kim, and the other panelists, Eric Goldman, Woodrow Hartzog, Corynne McSherry, and Jane Winn, for their thoughtful remarks about issues presented in the paper. I would also like to thank my fabulous research assistants Adam Dexter, John Guyette, Catherine Austin, Jessica Woodrow-Hogan, Briana Deutsch, Alanna Doherty, and Shaina Low for their invaluable research assistance. Small parts of this article were adapted from my article about the broader topic of the enforceability of family-based contracts. See Deborah Zalesne, The Contractual Family: The Role of the Market in Shaping Family Formulations and Rights, 36 CARDOZO L. REV. 101 (2015).