Assisted Reproduction and Alternative Families

The human desire to have children is strong, regardless of sexual orientation and marital status. Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) offer many people facing challenges conceiving on their own technological options to create families. While such services are available to heterosexual (married) couples who can afford it, ARTs are not uniformly available to same-sex couples or single people seeking to bring children into their lives. People seeking to create families outside hetero-normative conditions have faced numerous legal and social challenges.

Providers of infertility treatment in the United States have traditionally made a distinction between medical infertility (defined by trying for a year or more to conceive through heterosexual sex without success) and social infertility (not having natural access to a partner of the opposite sex). For

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