In his Article, Professor Robertson addresses policy issues related to
the use of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and the industry
which they have spawned. The Article identifies four major areas of p
olicy issues relating to ARTs: medical efficacy, access to ARTs, legal
infrastructure, and regulation. The Article focuses on the latter two
: legal infrastructure and regulation. Professor Robertson contends th
at, although ARTs can be used to form families that differ from the tr
aditional notion of a family (in which children are produced coitally
and are genetically related to both parents), ARTs should not be seen
as a threat to this tradition because the most common goal of ARTs is
to produce children biologically related to at least one of the parent
s. Thus, the process of creating a family should be treated equally re
gardless of whether ARTs are used. Professor Robertson explores the ne
ed for the development of legal infrastructure to deal with disputes t
hat can arise from ARTs. The two paradigmatic situations that arise ar
e disputes between the parties who provide gametes over their disposit
ion, and disputes between the gamete providers and the program or orga
nization providing the ART concerning ownership and control of the gam
etes or their products. The author also reviews the current system for
regulating the provision of ARTs and discusses whether further effort
s at regulation are desirable and how such efforts might be structured
.