PubMed · 11650109
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Susan Dodds, Karen Jones. 1989. Surrogacy and autonomy.. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.1989.tb00323.x
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Psychological researchers typically distinguish five major domains of individual differences in human behavior: cognitive abilities, personality, social attitudes, psychological interests, and psychopathology (Lubinski, 2000). In this article we: discuss a number of methodological errors commonly found in research on human individual differences; introduce a broad framework for interpreting findings from contemporary behavioral genetic studies; briefly outline the basic quantitative methods used in human behavioral genetic research; review the major criticisms of behavior genetic designs, with particular emphasis on the twin and adoption methods; describe the major or dominant theoretical scheme in each domain; and review behavioral genetic findings in all five domains. We conclude that there is now strong evidence that virtually all individual psychological differences, when reliably measured, are moderately to substantially heritable.
Child adoption in the face of reproduction gone awry continues to remain an under researched aspect of contemporary Indian reality. This paper seeks to unpack some of the critical cultural issues underscoring the deep-seated reluctance towards adoption. Drawing on a larger multi-sited research project examining the experience of infertility and assisted conception in India, the paper sheds light on the state of current adoption practices in India. Thus, when faced with infertility, couples in this research emerged as favouring secret gamete donation as a means of bypassing infertility rather than the option of adoption. Invoking the concept of systematic misrecognition, the paper situates the modalities of salvaging infertility, either through medically assisted conception or adoption, as structuring infertile people's quest for children. The paper relates the perceived stigma associated with infertility treatment and adoption with the inclusion of a "third party" that fractures the culturally conceptualized boundaries of family as inextricably tied to the conjugal bond. It is therefore argued that secrecy is born out of a need to obfuscate a "public and visible" violation of a culturally priced ideal that views an intimate connection between the "married body" and the progeny. Adoption continues to remain an undesirable option because the links between an adopted child and the social parent become a public, vocal, and visible admission of infertility that cannot be subsumed, like donated gamete conception, under a conspiracy of silence.
The debate about the information needs of donor-conceived people is reaching an important stage. The recent Government consultation about providing information on sperm, egg and embryo donors (Department of Health, 2001) has meant that the subject is receiving much public attention. More importantly, it is becoming increasingly evident that donor-conceived people themselves are beginning to have a voice about their experience of not being able to access basic information about their genealogical heritage. Gollancz (2001) raised some pertinent issues about the rights and needs of donor-conceived people to have access to identifying information about their genetic parents. Recent research is also providing powerful messages about the information needs of donor-conceived people. For example, the study by Turner and Coyle (2000) of 16 donor-conceived adults between the ages of 26 and 55 asked about identity experience, including issues of secrecy and disclosure of their donor-conceived status, and also investigated the experience of trying to trace and search for a genetic father (the donor), the current perception of donor insemination and how families could manage openness versus secrecy. The findings identify many similarities between adopted and donor-conceived people. But in what ways is adoption similar to donor conception? And can donor conception learn anything from adoption? This paper will explore some of the relevant lessons learned from adoption to draw out some of the issues, experiences and dilemmas shared by adopted people, donor-conceived people and their families, using the findings of The Children's Society's research study.