Main description:

Despite France and Belgium sharing and interacting constantly with similar culinary tastes, music and pop culture, access to Assisted Reproductive Technologies are strikingly different. Discrimination written into French law acutely contrasts with non-discriminatory access to ART in Belgium. The contributors of this volume are social scientists from France, Belgium, England and the United States, representing different disciplines: law, political science, philosophy, sociology and anthropology. Each author has attempted, through the prism of their specialties, to demonstrate and analyse how and why this striking difference in access to ART exists.

Contents:

List of Illustrations

Foreword: Recognizing Donor-Conceived Families: A Major Issue in Europe's Bioethics Debates

Irene Thery

Map. ART in Europe

Introduction

Jennifer Merchant

PART I: VISIBLE BORDERS - LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY

Chapter 1. ART and French Law: The Advantages and Inconveniences of the Therapeutic Model

Laurence Brunet

Chapter 2. ART and Surrogacy in Belgium: No Borders for Access - Few Borders for Kinship

Jehanne Sosson

PART II: INVISIBLE BORDERS, FRANCE, BELGIUM

Chapter 3. Does the Embryo Make the Family? Access to Embryo Donation in France

Severine Mathieu

Chapter 4. Access to ART in France and Belgium: The Standpoint of Four ART Practitioners

Jennifer Merchant

Chapter 5. Removing Anonymity for Egg and Sperm Donors? (Re-)Igniting the Debate in Belgium

Cathy Herbrand and Nicky Hudson

PART III: SAME-SEX FAMILIES AND SURROGACY

Chapter 6. When French Couples Become Parents Through Surrogacy in the United States: What Relationship with the Surrogate

Jerome Courduries

Chapter 7. Using ART or Surrogacy: Designating Third Parties in the Reproductive Process, and Representing Family Ties in Same-Sex Families

Martine Gross

Chapter 8. Queer Families Online: The Internet as a Resource for Accessing and Facilitating Surrogacy and ART in France and the United States

Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer

PART IV: CROSS-BORDER PRACTICES

Chapter 9. Single Men and Women Barred From Using ART in France

Dominique Mehl

Chapter 10. Cross-Border Reproductive Care for French Patients in Belgium

Guido Pennings

Chapter 11. Is ART a "National Issue"?

Marie Gaille

Conclusion

Jennifer Merchant

Index