Fertility Law Attorney and Visiting Professor Discuss Assisted Reproduction

On October 17, 2016, the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School, the Yale Health Law and Policy Society, Outlaws, and Law Students for Reproductive Justice co-hosted a dinner discussion on assisted reproduction technologies (ART).

The panel, entitled “The ‘ART’ of Family Formation: The Law and Ethics of Assisted Reproduction," featured Rich Vaughn, fertility law attorney and Chair of the ABA Family Law Section Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technologies, and Professor Doug NeJaime, Professor of Law at UCLA Law School, Director of the Williams Institute, and Visiting Professor at Yale Law School. The panel was moderated by Yale Law School student Kyle Edwards ’18.

The panelists kicked off the event by sharing their personal path to working in this area of law and highlighting the importance of ART for LGBTQ people and its implications for gender norms and equality. The panelists also discussed the practice of fertility law and the challenges of securing parental rights for LGBTQ couples. These challenges included the nuances of serving clients from outside the U.S. and variation across states in law addressing ART, particularly in the ways states treat surrogacy and LGBTQ couples. The panelists also answered questions from the audience about issues such as surrogacy contracts and the ethics of ART.