Law Commons^™

Teaching The Biological Clock: Age-Related Fertility Decline And Sex Education, Kerry Macintosh

Kerry L Macintosh

Fertility in women declines significantly at age thirty-two and takes a sharp downward turn at age thirty-seven. Miscarriages also increase with age. In vitro fertilization cannot reverse the effects of aging, and embryo screening, egg freezing, and egg donation are imperfect solutions.

Unfortunately, many women fail to grasp these facts until it is too late. Various factors are to blame, including physicians who shy away from the topic of age-related fertility decline, persistent messaging about the need for pregnancy prevention (implying that conception is easy), and media accounts of celebrities who are pregnant in their forties.

This Article argues that …

Brave New Eugenics: Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technologies In The Name Of Better Babies, Kerry Macintosh

Kerry L Macintosh

Infertile men and women have been using assisted reproductive technologies (“ART”) to conceive children since the first “test-tube baby” was born in 1978. During the past decade, however, the federal government has begun to clamp down on ART, asserting safety concerns as grounds for banning novel technologies such as cloning, nuclear transfer, and ooplasm transfer. Some scholars and policymakers now want to extend governmental regulation to include conventional ART such as in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (“ICSI”). They claim children conceived through ART face an increased risk of birth defects and other health problems. This Article examines …