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Reproductive technologies and the legal determination of fatherhood

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Abstract

In Re D is the most recent in a line of cases to raise problems with the determination of legal fatherhood under s.28(3) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The judgments in In Re D are interesting in particular because they demonstrate the growing currency of the idea that a child has a right to ‘genetic truth’. They also further evidence the ‘fragmentation of fatherhood’. This case is best understood as part of a complex and ongoing negotiation of men’s role in the family in the light of shifting family forms.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the E.S.R.C. for funding the research on which this case note draws, and to Sue Millns and Emily Haslam for their comments on an earlier draft.

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Correspondence to Sally Sheldon.

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Sheldon, S. Reproductive technologies and the legal determination of fatherhood. Feminist Legal Stud 13, 349–362 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-005-9008-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-005-9008-4

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