Dirk Hartog’s Someday All This Will Be Yours:  A History of Inheritance and Old Age is a book about story telling in the law, as well as a rich description of work within families, of the complex relationship between labor, money, and love.   It is also a new and critical (in several senses of that word) text for the developing field of elder law.    Elder law as a discipline  that is just now coming into its own, an event that, not coincidentally, is occurring as the baby boomers begin to hit retirement age and as the sandwich generation has become increasingly vocal.  More than half of all [...]]]> Hendrik Hartog, Someday All This Will be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age (Harvard University Press 2012)

Dirk Hartog’s Someday All This Will Be Yours:  A History of Inheritance and Old Age is a book about story telling in the law, as well as a rich description of work within families, of the complex relationship between labor, money, and love.   It is also a new and critical (in several senses of that word) text for the developing field of elder law.    Elder law as a discipline  that is just now coming into its own, an event that, not coincidentally, is occurring as the baby boomers begin to hit retirement age and as the sandwich generation has become increasingly vocal.  More than half of all law schools now include, in their listed curriculum, a course on elder law.

Hartog, who is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University, is also the author of Man and Wife in America (2000), which served as a legal history of marriage in America from the late 18th century through the middle of the 20th century, and was based on studying how ordinary men and women attempted to use the law either to escape their dissatisfying marriages or to seek shelter through the status of marriage. Someday All This Will Be Yours does something similar, also arguably within the context of family law, by studying how, from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, ordinary men and women arranged for their own care as they aged, and then how their alleged caretakers attempted to use the law to make good on these arrangements. Aging individuals used the promise (in these cases, the illusion) of inheritance to induce the needed caretaking at a time when there was no default of Social Security and Medicaid and before the widespread development of pensions.  The book analyzes the resulting conflicts about property inheritance, using an extensive database of more than 200 cases from 19th- and 20th-century New Jersey courts as well as more extensive trial transcripts in 60 of those suits.  Hartog closely, carefully, and painstakingly examines these cases for what they show about changing patterns in care for the elderly, parent-child relations, the tensions between family and commodification, and the development of the common law outside of precedent-setting and frequently cited cases.  As he points out, the cases involve two different “shadowy figures within family la as it has ordinarily been conceived:  the adult child and the elderly person.”  (p. 21)

The book has two major sections, and an epilogue that has a “presentist” kick, which relates this legal history of elder care to contemporary issues.  Hartog starts the book by describing the strategies that elderly people used to induce those around them to provide the requisite care.  There were few executed contracts, although there were some invalidly executed wills, which provided evidence of intent.  Instead, the core inducement was an explicit promise that was allegedly made by the older person that the younger person would receive the family farm or some other property in exchange for providing caretaking services.  The care might consist of physical labor, such as cooking, cleaning, and nursing, or it might consist of companionships, to protect against the loneliness and solitude of aging, and the younger person might be a family member, the spouse of a family member, or a close friend.  The database of cases provides multiple different contexts in which these promises were made.

In the second section, titled “Death and Lawyers,” the book turns to what happened when the older person failed to fully perform on the alleged promise, thereby precipitating the lawsuits that Hartog scrutinizes.  This was when the caretaker consulted with a lawyer, trying to establish the legal grounds for the promised property, an action typically based on contract law.  Once in court, judges had to decide whether the services had been performed gratuitously, with the mere expectation of compensation, or based on an explicit offer and acceptance.  In reading through the range of cases discussed in the book, it is difficult to develop overarching legal principles as to when courts would order relief; indeed, Hartog concedes that “[i]t Is often hard to discern why a case came out as it did . . many of the cases leave the reader uncertain why work revealed by the testimony did or did not entitle the complainant [] to special compensation.”  (pp. 257-58)

Consequently, Hartog has not sought to write a history of the development of specific legal doctrine.  Instead, the book is focused on negotiations within relationships, on informal practices that sought legal recognition. More broadly, as he points out in the Epilogue, he is looking at the psychological, emotional, and cultural dilemmas in caring for older people.   During the time period he studied, care was privatized, and older people used the power of property, of inheritance and its corresponding freedom of testation to protect themselves; today, much of elder care has become more public, and older people turn to others not based on power, but as a result of need. Nonetheless, he ends by noting that the stories revealed by the cases, of how to understand one’s role within a family as both parents and children age (the parents become elderly and the children become adults), resonate today, particularly given our increasing longevity

The book touches upon family law, trusts and estates, property, contract, commodification, and (of course) the role of legal history, and  it pulls these together  with wonderful complexity and intertwined themes.   It also should speak to many people on a personal level, whether they feel “’trapped’” into caring for elderly family members, well-compensated for providing this care, or simply honored to do so.

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Naomi Cahn is a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and author of Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture (Oxford Univ. Press 2010) (with June Carbone).

Nancy Dowd’s interest in masculinities has developed organically from her past scholarship examining the cultural barriers to men becoming more involved fathers.  Much of her research seeks to decenter and challenge masculinity as the norm for measuring both men and women’s behaviours, and thus to deconstruct masculinities.   This book provides a primer on the development of masculinities scholarship, explores the relationship between masculinities theory and feminist analysis, and provides practical analysis of various topics concerning issues of manhood and masculinity for boys and men, ultimately advancing feminist jurisprudence.

 A note on terminology and substance.  In the first section of the book, which is focused on theory (and is almost half of the book), [...]]]> Nancy Dowd, The Man Question: Male Subordination and Privilege (NYU Press 2010).

Nancy Dowd’s interest in masculinities has developed organically from her past scholarship examining the cultural barriers to men becoming more involved fathers.  Much of her research seeks to decenter and challenge masculinity as the norm for measuring both men and women’s behaviours, and thus to deconstruct masculinities.   This book provides a primer on the development of masculinities scholarship, explores the relationship between masculinities theory and feminist analysis, and provides practical analysis of various topics concerning issues of manhood and masculinity for boys and men, ultimately advancing feminist jurisprudence.

 A note on terminology and substance.  In the first section of the book, which is focused on theory (and is almost half of the book),  Professor Dowd writes that masculinities scholarship  has developed out of feminist, gay and lesbian, and queer theory.  While men have, of course, been studied throughout history, it is only recently that men have been studied explicitly and specifically as “gendered subjects.”  The “man question” of the title refers to “how gender functions to subordinate some or all or most men, as well as how men consciously and unconsciously accept privilege with its patriarchal dividend as well as its costs”  (p. 1). (For Kate Bartlett’s 1990 groundbreaking article on Feminist Legal Method, including her discussion of “’the woman question’”, see here.)  Dowd dates use of the term masculinities, as a self-conscious reference to research about men, to the mid-1980s, and the term itself has multiple meanings and objects of study. First, it involves analysis of a set of socially constructed concepts that give men as a group power over women as a group.   These translate into practices that are defined as masculine which are designed to maintain group power.

Second, it examines multiple masculinities with the recognition that, within the male world, there is a hierarchy of privilege. As feminist legal theorists have shown through their analysis of essentialism (all women are not the same, and circumstances, including race and class, affect how femininity is defined and experienced), this same analysis applies to men.  Masculinities theory explores the multiplicity of constructions of manhood and masculinity, showing how varying circumstances affect the experiences of masculinity.  For example, hegemonic masculinity  defines a dominant conception of masculinity for men at the top, with the most power (p. 27). Understanding hegemonic masculinity is critical to seeing how the manifestation of manhood in multiple societal settings reinforces the power that some men maintain over women and other men. That hegemonic masculinities are embedded in multiple sites and practices emphasizes their pervasive influence upon social interaction between groups of men, within familial and communal settings for men, and between men and women.  Beyond hegemonic masculinities, there is a range of both subordinate and subversive masculinities, with race, class, and sexual orientation as critical pieces in constructing these different forms of masculinities.  She ultimately demonstrates how both subordination and privilege are constructed for men and boys through her intertwined analysis of masculinities and feminist theory, and argues that incorporating masculinities theory will greatly benefit feminist jurisprudence.

In the last two sections of the book, Dowd focuses on how boys and men have been subordinated by gender, and applies the analysis she developed in the first section.  For boys, she addresses the position of boys in education (including all of the attention to the crisis of boys – for perspectives on that issue, see here and here), and juvenile justice (where boys are the focus of the system);  for men, she explores fatherhood and the barriers to full participation in parenthood, and then, with the psychologist Ted Shaw, she focuses on how masculinities analysis might help in developing a more effective approach to male survivors of child sexual abuse. Professor Dowd has extensively explored fatherhood in her past work (e.g., Redefining Fatherhood (2000)),  and has shown how the constraints of the masculine role have acted as a barrier to men assuming more nurturant roles. In this book, she suggests that masculinities theory enhances this analysis by showing that, because masculinity is not monolithic and unchanged, fatherhood norms can be changed, such as through providing additional support to both marital and nonmarital fathers when their children are born.  As children become increasingly likely to  live apart from their fathers – 27% in 2010 compared to 11% in 1960 – and as research makes us more aware of how the gap between paternal involvement varies by income  — this issue is assuming even greater significance.

Indeed, calling attention to how gender affects men is particularly important at a time when  expectations about masculinity are changing.  While public opinion polls show that men are still expected to be breadwinners, the share of husbands whose wives outearn them has increased more than fivefold since 1970, from 4% to 22%.     Women now outnumber men at all levels of higher education.  Indeed, as a recent survey noted, in 2009, 36% of  women ages 25-29 had at least a bachelor’s degree compared with only 28% of men in the same age group.   Masculinities theory might help in understanding the disconnect between reality and role.

At the same time, as Professor Dowd discusses, masculinities theory has the potential risk of  displacing and replacing the primary focus on women’s inequality that is at the core of much gender theory.  In response, defending the use of masculinities theory, she argues that the theory’s greatest promises involve providing a more comprehensive understanding and analysis of gender symmetry and asymmetry.   The discussion of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in programs that receive federal funding, provides a nice example of this promise.  She suggests that Title IX could be applied much more broadly to address gender bias that affects both boys and girls not just with respect to the more typical contexts of sports and sexual harassment but also in the academic context, where it is far less frequently used.  While she could have expanded her discussion of more concrete strategies (here and in other places in the book), the book suggests a framework for moving forward.

Masculinities theories and feminist analysis have not always worked in tandem, and only relatively recently have feminist scholars sought to address what masculinities studies has to offer feminist theorizing.  Nancy Dowd has been at the forefront of that effort, and this book provides a good grounding for further developments.

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 Naomi Cahn is a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and author of Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture (Oxford Univ. Press 2010) (with June Carbone).

So here’s a book we can all rejoice over: Nancy Levit and Doug Linder’s The Happy Lawyer:  Making a Good Life in the Law. Although it offers the reader lots of research, it’s not really a legal academic book, and may not even mention the Constitution or a court case; although it offers the reader a happiness toolbox, it’s definitely not a self-help book.  Instead, it’s a book that anyone who is – or was – or wants to be –a lawyer (or anyone who knows a lawyer) should read to find out how career choices can maximize our chances of achieving [...]]]> Nancy Levit & Douglas O. Linder, The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law. Oxford University Press, 2010.   304 pp.

So here’s a book we can all rejoice over: Nancy Levit and Doug Linder’s The Happy Lawyer:  Making a Good Life in the Law. Although it offers the reader lots of research, it’s not really a legal academic book, and may not even mention the Constitution or a court case; although it offers the reader a happiness toolbox, it’s definitely not a self-help book.  Instead, it’s a book that anyone who is – or was – or wants to be –a lawyer (or anyone who knows a lawyer) should read to find out how career choices can maximize our chances of achieving happiness.  It even discusses the meanings of happiness, and why happiness might be an appropriate life goal!  To be sure, the authors also discuss the role of melancholy in our lives.

I’m recommending it to all of my students, and to my friends practicing law, and even to my husband, who prides himself on NOT being a lawyer.  Note that there is very little advice for law professors on how to achieve happiness in our own lives, perhaps in recognition that we’ve achieved happiness already — or that being happy is not our focus.  There is one very long chapter on how students can use their law school years to prepare themselves for job satisfaction.

The book makes it case by using the developing literature on the science of happiness and through interviews of hundreds of lawyers.  Although this may cause many of us to think about those books sold in airports with titles like, “You Too Can Be Happy if Only . . .,” an increasing number of studies focus on the psychology and sociology of happiness, as well as the neuroscience of happy minds.  Levit and Linder walk through the impact of dopamine, oxytocin, and Ecstasy on the brain, suggesting that wading through thousands of depositions may not cause the release of happiness-inducing chemicals.  Instead, the authors point out that six experiences are essential to making a person satisfied with her life, including “security, autonomy, authenticity, relatedness, competence, and self-esteem” (p. 44).

My one criticism is that there may be too much emphasis on getting out of the large law firm — great advice for associates who’ve been there a few years, perhaps, but not necessarily for people just starting in practice or even entering law school.  Lawyers at large firms are far less happy (44%) than public interest lawyers (68%), we learn (p. 9).  But, law students have large amounts of debt, and will typically receive very good training at law firms, so perhaps they can stay happy enough by remaining focused on their long-term goals; on a fulfilling life outside of the law; and by the intellectual excitement of working on issues that they may not care a lot about, but that are meaningful to clients, to courts, and to their intellectual growth.

In no way, I should add, do I endorse large firms. I warn students that they’re seductive, and that jobs there are easier to find (well, at least until recently, with the changes in the economics of law firms, that has been true for our graduates because of the extensive recruiting program with schools  – Sarah Waldeck has an interesting post on this issue http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2010/01/who-should-and-shouldnt-go-to-law-school.html), so finding another kind of job is much harder. And law schools seem to provide lots of support for going to large firms.  Being told that they’re virtually destined for unhappiness if they work at one, however, law students and lawyers might get even more depressed.  Levit and Linder do note “that not all lawyers at giant firms are unhappy” (p. 193). The authors even have a chapter that suggests how law firms can make their lawyers happier, ranging from, “Taking Off the Billable Hours Straitjacket” (did I mention the authors’ marvelous senses of humor?) to helping with the work-life balance.

Indeed, in a wonderful list of “What Happiness Research Predicts About Your Career” (p. 231), the authors note that those who work for government, in a small firm, or in solo practice, as well as those attorneys whose work aligns with their values, are more likely to be satisfied with their careers.    By following the advice throughout the book, even more lawyers throughout the profession can consider themselves happy.

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Naomi Cahn is a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and author of Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture (Oxford Univ. Press 2010) (with June Carbone).

In conjunction with a recent conference on state security in Norway, I examined six reports on state weakness to determine their approach to the use of gender equality as an indicator of state fragility or failure. These six reports were issued between 2005-2008 by highly influential U.S. foreign policy institutions, including private and public agencies, and one of them was co-authored by Susan Rice (before she became [...]]]> This post is prompted by Jaya Ramji-Nogales’s discussion of the recent OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index. In her very thoughtful post – with which I entirely agree — she discusses the problems of “empirically measuring and ranking intangible phenomena such as social norms,” And she notes that the OECD publication was not entirely successful.But at least it tried.

In conjunction with a recent conference on state security in Norway, I examined six reports on state weakness to determine their approach to the use of gender equality as an indicator of state fragility or failure. These six reports were issued between 2005-2008 by highly influential U.S. foreign policy institutions, including private and public agencies, and one of them was co-authored by Susan Rice (before she became our Ambassador to the UN). While measures of gender equity are included in other assessments, such as the OECD’s index, the UNDP’s Human Development Report , or Freedom House’s evaluation of global freedom, this simply shows the integration of gender into development or civil liberties markers; these assessments are not self-conscious analyses of state security and fragility, unlike the 6 reports I examined. Apart from the USAID report, the other 5 reports did not use gender as an assessment tool.

Indicators and assessment tools can be important components in establishing state policies and practices towards developing countries. Consequently, the components that comprise each of these evaluative efforts are signs of what is considered critical to ensuring state stability. Donor agencies are increasingly using various indicators to help them evaluate country performance in order to ensure that their resources will be used most efficiently and effectively. While indicators are imperfect – they are subject to errors in measurement, and they take thin slices of complex issues — they are useful, within these limitations, for providing broad-brush pictures of a country’s status. But not if they don’t include gender at all. Gender equity provides a useful measurement of state security, as Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Dina Haynes, and I argue in our forthcoming book. Nonetheless, its significance is virtually unrecognized in numerous evaluations of state fragility, thereby leading to the risk that gender will remain unrecognized in efforts to promote state stability.

I must confess that I didn’t watch any of this  season — or of any others — but my daughters have been keeping me informed.  My professional interest was piqued by comments about whether Kris Allen’s victory is the “latest red state/blue state battle.”   Allen has served as a church worship leader, and Lambert wore black nail polish on stage.  [...]]]> About 100 million of us voted for the newest American Idol (crowned last night on the Fox Broadcasting show).   “We” chose Kris Allen, a college student from Conway, AR, who likes to ”pray and stretch” before he performs and whose proudest moment was when he married his wife.  Allen beat Adam Lambert, a musical theater actor from Hollywood, CA, who is obsessed with astrology and whose proudest moment was “falling in love.”

I must confess that I didn’t watch any of this  season — or of any others — but my daughters have been keeping me informed.  My professional interest was piqued by comments about whether Kris Allen’s victory is the “latest red state/blue state battle.”   Allen has served as a church worship leader, and Lambert wore black nail polish on stage.  On Huffington Post, Jim David argues that:  “Allen’s Christianity, church roots and corn-fed wife were exploited, as were Lambert’s musical theatre roots (i.e. his ‘theatre fag’ history); “ Michael Glitz, who supported Allen, takes a longer view of American Idol, suggesting that if you “look at seasons past and where there’s a clear Christian vs secular showdown, the Christians have been winning handily.”   Empiricists will certainly use the ”Gokey/third contestant” theory which suggests that, once Danny Gokey (the third of the final three contestants) and a church music director, dropped out, his votes had to go to one of the final two.

I look forward to your vote on whether this is a red/blue issue.

UCLA’s Williams Institute has just issued two studies on the economic effects of gay marriage. The first study, on the relationship between a state’s approach to marriage equality and population migration – documents that members of the “creative class” –  people who “create’ as their job – who are in same-sex relationships were much more likely to move to Massachusetts following the Goodridge decision and the legalization of same-sex marriage. The study’s author suggests that this could improve help the state’s economy in the long-term. A second study shows that same-sex weddings have added over $100 million to the Massachusetts economy  (although this is not even a drop in the bucket in the $300 billion spent in Massachusetts in, for example 2004). Serendipitously, [...]]]> Co-authored with June Carbone 

UCLA’s Williams Institute has just issued two studies on the economic effects of gay marriage. The first study, on the relationship between a state’s approach to marriage equality and population migration – documents that members of the “creative class” –  people who “create’ as their job – who are in same-sex relationships were much more likely to move to Massachusetts following the Goodridge decision and the legalization of same-sex marriage. The study’s author suggests that this could improve help the state’s economy in the long-term. A second study shows that same-sex weddings have added over $100 million to the Massachusetts economy  (although this is not even a drop in the bucket in the $300 billion spent in Massachusetts in, for example 2004). Serendipitously, David Brooks wrote an op ed in the New York Times today, “In Praise of Dullness,” discussing  a different study that found the ideal C.E.O. is ” humble, diffident, relentless and a bit unidimensional,” in short, “not the most exciting people to be around.”  This study complements the work of journalists and political scientists, such as Bill Bishop and Andrew Gelman,  who increasingly find that the high tech centers of the country (including the Boston corridor) attract that same creative class open to new ideas and approving of same sex marriage, while the conscientious, more religious, and conventional family oriented types are drawn to other regions – regions that tend to oppose same-sex marriage.

Do these divisions suggest that opposition to same-sex marriage is in our genes – or at least our personality types? The CEOs and the creative class of the new economy may not belong to different tribes, but they tend to see the world through different lenses that color  their  perceptions.      Thus, those opposed to same-sex marriage are unlikely to be persuaded by these – or any other — data. Different ways of framing issues – including the calls for a reaffirmation of traditional values versus insistence on the need for greater acceptance of diverse family forms – appeal to different worldviews.

When political issues are framed in these terms, practically or metaphorically, they reinforce deeply held beliefs. Such beliefs are resistant to argument, logic, or facts. Indeed, cultural research by Yale’s Cultural Cognition Project  as well as linguist George Lakoff suggests that when empirical data conflict with these beliefs, people reinterpret or deny the empirical findings rather than change their views (cites to all of this work is in the book manuscript for Red Families). Neuroscientists have even shown that different parts of the brain are activated by information that conforms to or challenges people’s beliefs. Consequently, when many people are confronted with new scientific information on issues that are culturally controversial, then religious authorities are more convincing than the cold, hard data.

For those of us who believe in gay marriage, however, bring on more studies like this!

In previous posts, I’ve discussed the analysis of red families v. blue families I’m writing with Professor June Carbone. Reproductive issues – specifically abortion – retain their ability to rally the red paradigm base. Conservatives can’t stop talking about abortion; abortion is, in the words of one political [...]]]> The juxtaposition of the controversy over President Obama speaking at Notre Dame, a newly released Gallup poll finding that a majority of Americans are anti-choice, and a governmental report on the increasing rate of nonmarital childbearing highlights the challenges of reproductive rights in American life and politics. Abortion is an intrinsically divisive issue, and it has become a focal point for values conflict. What we really need to do is to change the subject, from abortion to contraception.

In previous posts, I’ve discussed the analysis of red families v. blue families I’m writing with Professor June Carbone. Reproductive issues – specifically abortion – retain their ability to rally the red paradigm base. Conservatives can’t stop talking about abortion; abortion is, in the words of one political commentator, “their meal ticket.” It remains the family values issues least amenable to compromise. Indeed, the Gallup poll measuring abortion views found little change in the views of Democrats. Instead, the increase in pro-life attitudes comes from those who identify as conservatives and moderates.
In contrast, attitudes toward contraception are on a continuum — over ninety-five percent of sexually active women will use contraception at some point in their lives. More critically, the intensity of the abortion conflict obscures the real tragedy: the United States has the highest rates of unplanned teen pregnancies in the developed world. Thirty percent of American girls will become pregnant before they turn twenty, and eighty percent of the pregnancies are unplanned. The only way to genuinely address family values is to reconsider the terms of family formation. The dramatic story of the nineties was a national decline in teen births, a decline most dramatic for the poorest and most vulnerable Americans, and one concentrated much more heavily in the urban northeast and the successful middle class. That decline in births occurred at the same time teen pregnancy and abortion rates fell, and it depended on both greater abstinence and more effective contraceptive use. In the last few years, teen births have crept back up, with the largest rise for African-Americans. This has been attributed to some combination of  increasing amounts of abstinence-only education and lesser access to contraception based, in part, on the economy.  At the same time, the morning after pill and non-surgical abortion (RU-486) have blurred the line between contraception and abortion for the middle class, increasing ease of access for those with medical care, and worsening the plight of women with the least resources as abortion later during pregnancy becomes harder to secure.

If there is middle ground in the cultural fight, it should be on the importance of moving family formation out of the teen years. Early marriage derails education and increases the likelihood of divorce. As the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy points out, young teen mothers are less likely to complete high school, and their children do not perform as well in school as do children of older parents. While abstinence reinforcement can play a useful role, few modern couples will forego contraceptive use altogether – whether within marriage or without. Comprehensive approaches to deterring improvident childbirth, with special attention to the needs of poorer, minority and evangelical teens, should command greater support. After all, those who succeed in avoiding unplanned births become more to like to marry, stay married, and bear children who replicate more stable family patterns.

So change the subject. To keep abortion legal, talk about contraception instead.

Depending on where you live, today or tomorrow is “Bike to Work” Day.  Bicycles have been around the US since at least 1866, when Pierre Lallement received patent no. 59,915 for a velocipede.  I’ve been an avid year-round bike commuter for 8 years now (aside from my 2 years in Kinshasa, Congo, when I couldn’t walk around the block without an escort), and, like most zealots, I like to proselytize. Now that I’ve converted to a bike commuter, I extol the economic [...]]]> One of the benefits of being at GW is that I get to talk to Dan Solove in person. When I saw him on Wednesday, he reminded me that blogging doesn’t always have to be about my past books or future projects. Thanks, Dan!

Depending on where you live, today or tomorrow is “Bike to Work” Day.  Bicycles have been around the US since at least 1866, when Pierre Lallement received patent no. 59,915 for a velocipede.  I’ve been an avid year-round bike commuter for 8 years now (aside from my 2 years in Kinshasa, Congo, when I couldn’t walk around the block without an escort), and, like most zealots, I like to proselytize. Now that I’ve converted to a bike commuter, I extol the economic and environmental benefits of riding:  bicycles don’t use any fossil fuels to get you from one place to another; an 8-mile bicycle trip keeps out about 15 pounds of pollutants from the air we are breathing; and somewhere between 6-20 bikes can be parked in one car parking space (mine is parked as a piece of art in my office).  Just as importantly, however, bike commuting is really fun. It is fast: even at my pace on the bike of 10-15 mph, I breeze right past people in cars. And it’s wonderful for my mental health. One of my friends interviewed me for a story she wrote for Good Housekeeping magazine (!) about how people find serenity. I told her I find serenity through writing articles and blog posts, but she wasn’t convinced; not until I told her about my bike commuting did she put pen to paper. So, as one corporate sports giant might say, Just do it!

I’ve met Ryan once, and was incredibly impressed with him – I’m not surprised that he was able to complete his competitive college program nor that he is seeking out half-siblings and the man who anonymously provided the sperm that enabled Ryan to exist.  Ryan and I met at a conference on establishing a national donor gamete databank. Ryan and his mother, Wendy Kramer, have started the [...]]]> Ryan Kramer graduated from Colorado University’s aerospace engineering program on Friday, a program that is so tough that only about 50% of those who begin ultimately finish it.  Before he starts his master’s degree in engineering management  at USC this fall, one of his big summer plans is to meet two of his half-siblings; he has at least five others.

I’ve met Ryan once, and was incredibly impressed with him – I’m not surprised that he was able to complete his competitive college program nor that he is seeking out half-siblings and the man who anonymously provided the sperm that enabled Ryan to exist.  Ryan and I met at a conference on establishing a national donor gamete databank. Ryan and his mother, Wendy Kramer, have started the enormously successful Donor Sibling Registry, which is now responsible for connecting more than 6000 people with others who share some of the same genetic origins (disclosure: I have just become a board member of the DSR).

Donor-conceived offspring often – although not always – regret their lack of connection with their entire biological heritage. They want to know more about the often anonymous individual[s] who helped create them. As the secrecy around using “donor” sperm and eggs dissolves – in the past, parents frequently did not tell their children that they had been created by donor gametes — offspring and their parents are increasingly trying to get additional information and are advocating for disclosure of “donor” identities. Many have begun to use the internet to create an extended family that includes others who have used the same donor. Almost 150,000 people visited the DSR website in 2008, and more than 24,000 people have registered on it. It maintains an extremely active blog and message group.

The language in the donor world shows how these families are constructed. Offspring who share the same donor are typically labelled “half-siblings.  “Accidental incest” is a concern.   The word “donor” is itself a misnomer; gametes are typically sold rather than provided altrustically.  

  Biological connection is, of course, only one of the many methods of forming a family. Yet the genetic ties between their children cause many women to feel strong family-like connections to each other.  Consider Gwenyth Jackaway, who, according to a story in O Magazine  searched for genetic relatives for her son, Dylan, because she wanted him to be “part of a larger community,” and refers to the other children she found as “Dylan’s siblings.” Then there’s Mike Rubino, who was Donor 929 at California Cryobank. He was inspired to find what happened to the sperm he had provided to the Cryobank, and, through the DSR, discovered that Rachael McGhee had written a thank you message to Donor 929. McGhee had given birth to 2 children using sperm from Donor 929, and, on Father’s Day, she’d remind the children to think about their donor and send him hugs. Rubino and McGhee, along with her 2 children, ultimately spent a week together, getting to know one another.
For Ryan, finding his donor led to a feeling of “‘immediate peacefulness,’” his mother explained to the Denver Post. As I have argued in the context of both adoption and the donor world,  the United States should establish a national donor gamete registry, similar to that in place in numerous other countries such as Great Britain. The registry should keep track of children both through donor egg, embryo, and sperm, including the identities of the gamete providers. Federal law already requires that fertility clinics provide information on the number of children born through donor eggs and embryos, although the procedures for collecting this additional information are not in place and would take some time to develop. Participation in such a registry would be mandatory for anyone involved in supplying donor gametes. When donor-conceived offspring reach a certain age, they should be able to receive identifying information about their donor (the donor could file a statement indicating his/her lack of interest in being contacted). While mandatory limits on donor anonymity constitute a radical change in existing practices, there are multiple reasons supporting this change – including a goal of helping other offspring find the “immediate peacefulness” that Ryan found.

The overall message from the website is that [...]]]> I wasn’t going to say anything about Bristol Palin’s new job, but then a friend sent me a column in today’s New York Timesabout Ms. Palin. In case you missed this news item, Ms. Palin (18 and nonmarital mother of baby Tripp) has become a teen ambassador for the Candie’s Foundation, which is supposed to educate us about how we can fight teen pregnancy. To market its message, the Foundation is selling tank tops for $15 with the slogan, “I’m Sexy enough . . . to keep you waiting.” (Disclosure: I should note that I tottered around in my 3-inch Candie’s high heel shoes several decades ago, but have given them up for shoes from The Walking Company.)

The overall message from the website is that teens should wait. On its webpage, “Tips for Teens,” the Foundation asks, “What should you know?” and then replies:

Did you know that over 90% of teens believe that it’s important that they get a strong message about waiting to have sex? In fact, 60% of teens who have had sex wish they had waited longer and 75% don’t see anything embarrassing about admitting that they’re virgins. Clearly, teens in the 21st century are recognizing merit in putting off sex and the consequences – both physical and emotional – that are attached to sex.

I think encouraging teen abstinence is incredibly important, even more so now that my younger daughter has just joined the ranks of teen-agers. But I think it is even more important not to let encouraging abstinence get in the way of discouraging pregnancy. The U.S. has the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the developed work — three in ten women will experience pregnancy before the age of 20, a very scary statistic. And those rates are almost certainly higher than they need be because of the energy we devote to encouraging abstinence. As Ms. Palin so clearly, vividly, and painfully shows, abstinence is not realistic.

June Carbone and I have observed that there is no evidence that abstinence-only education in fact makes abstinence until marriage more likely, or produces a decline in either teen or non-marital births.

Some studies show that abstinence-only education leaves teens less prepared for the sexual relations they later develop, with a corresponding increase in unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases; and that teens who participate in abstinence-only education appear to begin sexual activity at roughly the same ages as teen who do not participate in the programs and to be just as likely to have sexual encounters before marriage.

In April 2007, a comprehensive, congressionally authorized review of federally funded programs found that youth who participated in abstinence education programs were no more nor less likely to have abstained from sex than those in a control group who had not received the abstinence education programs. While religion can make a difference — religiously devout teens do begin sexual activity a year later on average than their less devout religious counterparts who profess the same religious beliefs – even the most devout overwhelmingly do not abstain until marriage.

The dramatic story of the nineties was a national decline in teen births, a decline most dramatic for the poorest and most vulnerable Americans. That decline in births occurred at the same time teen pregnancy and abortion rates fell, and while it involved greater abstinence during the early teen year years, the greater declines came from more effective contraceptive use among older teens. In the last few years, teen births have crept back up. Commentators attribute the increase to some combination of the worsening economy (a bright future is the best contraceptive), increasing amounts of abstinence-only education (the poorer the woman, the more likely she is to receive no information about contraception before her initial sexual encounter), and lesser access to contraception (the most effective methods require a prescription).
“Do as I say, not as I do” has never been an effective message.

Consider the proposed Georgia law, and almost copycat-like, [...]]]> Dan first asked me to blog a few months ago, around the time my book, Test Tube Families: Why the Fertility Market Needs Legal Regulation, was hitting the market. Since then, we’ve had Nadya Suleman’s octuplets, President Obama’s lifting of the federal stem cell research ban (although this may only apply to embryos resulting from fertility efforts), and proposed new legislation in Georgia that would allow for embryos to be “adopted.” These events in reproductive technology are neither as newsworthy nor as profoundly disturbing as the torture memos or bailing out Wall Street — or, potentially, as swine flu. They are, nonetheless, critical to the cultural conflict over abortion, family formation, and gender roles.

Consider the proposed Georgia law, and almost copycat-like, legislation in Tennesse. The “Option of Adoption Act” is a Georgia bill that is now sitting on the desk of Ga.. Governor Sonny Perdue. This is the same Republican governor who filed his own brief in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder (the Voting Rights Case that the Supreme Court heard last week), arguing – among other things — that electing a black president indicates no further need for the type of scrutiny Georgia receives under Section 5; the Georgia attorney general had, apparently, refused to file such a brief. Anyway, the Option of Adoption Act, which was introduced in the Georgia legislature by an anti-abortion state representative, sets out methods through which people who create an embryo (when someone undergoes a cycle of in vitro fertilization, there are often embryos left over that ) can donate any leftovers to someone else. There may be up to half a million frozen embryos in the United States, although many of them are incapable of becoming viable fetuses. In Georgia, if the legislation becomes law, the recipients of any embryo transfer can then choose to petition a court for recognition that they are the legal parents of any child born to them.

.One of the bill’s advocates, Daniel Becker, the President of Georgia Right to Life, trumpeted that, “’This bill is monumental in that it establishes the adoption of embryos as children for adoption purposes.’” Indeed, there have even been claims that an embryo exchange should be the basis for eligibility under the federal adoption tax credit. As Sarah Lawsky and I painstaking show in Embryo Exchanges and Adoption Tax Credits, use of someone else’s embryo is not an adoption. Calling embryos “children” is problematic for a number of reasons.

First, and most clearly, it is part of a right to life agenda designed, ultimately, to overturn Roe. In the short term, this is an effort to continue to control the rhetoric around abortion and to continue to make inroads through the political process on women’s right to choose. And, it is factually inaccurate. Not only is the terminology politically motivated, but also the legal procedures for donating an embryo are quite different from the legal procedures for an adoption.

Second, labeling an embryo a “child” may lead to questions about how to think about egg and sperm that are “donated” by one person to another. (Here again the language is tricky: egg and sperm are usually not donated but are — as many other wonderful colleagues have noted — sold. Stay tuned for a potential blog post about this.) If there are to be questions raised about the fertility industry, however, the questions should relate to better regulation without allowing right to life advocates to take over the discourse. For more on this, see Jennifer Collins’s recent post.

Finally, there are numerous options for thinking about what to do about the problem of leftover embryos. Many people don’t like the idea that their embryos will become someone else’s children, or they want to keep these embryos in storage for future family-building; others want to dispose of them entirely; some want to donate them for research; and then there’s the group who wants to help others family-build. If we think of embryos as “children,” however, we may limit people’s choices on what to do with their leftover embryos, and we may also get close, again, to shutting down federal funding for stem cell research. . No good outcomes here – unless we think of embryos as embryos.