Family Values and "Reciprocal IVF": What Difference Does Sexual Identity Make?

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer family-making has exploded in many western nations in the past few decades in the midst of growing social acceptance and legal recognition of queer families, as well as increasing options for same-sex reproduction.1 Philosophers and bioethicists have perhaps been late in taking up these issues compared to scholars in other fields concerned with politics, justice, and cultural criticism. And where philosophers and bioethics have taken up these topics, often the moral issues at stake are framed in a manner that implicitly or explicitly holds heterosexual reproduction through intercourse in a committed relationship to be the normal, natural, and morally unquestioned...