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4 - Bringing Feminist Fundamentalism to U.S. Baby Markets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2012

Mary Anne Case
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Michele Bratcher Goodwin
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Summary

The central claim of this chapter should not be a controversial one. The claim is simply this: that our nation's fundamental constitutional commitment to the equality of the sexes, and to the instantiation of that equality in the repudiation of “fixed notions concerning the roles and abilities of men and women,” should apply with full force in any legal intervention into the baby markets, including intervention in adoption and child custody disputes, as it does whenever the state necessarily intervenes in family matters.

What makes the claim more controversial than it should be is that many who are themselves personally and professionally committed to sex equality in American law and life are also committed to honoring other values, including religious freedom, cultural diversity, personal and family autonomy, and sharp limitations on governmental interference in private life and individual choice. Properly interpreted, however, existing U.S. law already commits us as a nation to sex equality as a priority, as I will demonstrate. I call the position I am seeking to vindicate feminist fundamentalism, by which I mean an uncompromising commitment to the equality of the sexes as intense and at least as worthy of respect as, for example, a religiously or culturally based commitment to female subordination or fixed sex roles. Both individuals and nation-states can have feminist fundamentalist commitments relevant to the legal regulation of the baby markets.

Type
Chapter
Information
Baby Markets
Money and the New Politics of Creating Families
, pp. 56 - 68
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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References

Sullivan, Kathleen, Constitutionalizing Women's Equality, 90 cal. l. rev. 735, 755 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Case, Mary Anne, Reflections on Constitutionalizing Women's Equality, 90 cal. l. rev. 765 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stacey, Judith & Biblarz, Timothy J., (How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter? 66 am. soc. rev. 159 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dwyer, James, Religious Exemptions to Child Welfare and Education Laws as Denials of Equal Protection to Children of Religious Objectors, 74 n.c. l. rev. 1321 (1996)Google Scholar
Volokh, Eugene, Parent Child Speech and Child Custody Speech Restrictions, 81 n.y.u. l. rev. 631 (2006)Google Scholar
Shellenbarger, Sue, Boys Mow Lawns, Girls Do Dishes: Are Parents Perpetuating the Chore Wars?wall st. j., Dec. 7, 2006, at D1Google Scholar

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