Professor Ikemoto Contributes Op-ed to New York Times
Professor Lisa Ikemoto contributed an essay to "Room for Debate," a feature of the New York Times website. Professor Ikemoto was one of a group of experts contributing answers to the question of "What can be done to ensure that birth surrogacy is safe, ethical, and protective of both the birth mother and the intended parents?"
In her article, Professor Ikemoto lists several of the legal and ethical issues surrounding surrogacy, and calls for international law to play an expanded role.
"Including global surrogacy under the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which helps pressure nations to improve their laws, is a possible pathway," writes Ikemoto. "At the least, surrogacy should only move forward when children born of surrogacy will have legal parents and citizenship assured, when surrogates' health, well-being and daily lives are prioritized, and when intended parents are protected against discrimination based on marital status, sexual orientation, or other status."
Lisa Ikemoto teaches bioethics and health law courses at the UC Davis School of Law. She has written extensively on genetic and reproductive technology, the regulation of fertility and pregnancy, and race and gender disparities in health care. Her current work examines emerging issues in regenerative medicine, including stem cell research, and the human tissues market.