Surrogacy provides an alternative means of conception, not only to heterosexual couples who encounter infertility or reproductive loss, but also to single, same-sex, or transgender individuals who want to have children. However, surrogacy itself raises a number of concerns, arguably introducing as many difficulties as it solves. In Conceiving Family, Danielle Tumminio Hansen tackles the unnamed and unexamined problems surrounding surrogacy within a theological framework.Tumminio Hansen begins by investigating the primacy of the biological family and the profound influence it has had on how infertility and reproductive loss have been understood culturally. By using the United States, Israel, and India as case studies, Tumminio Hansen profiles the cultural constructions of surrogacy and the complications surrounding it in places where the biological family is considered the norm. Through a theological lens, Conceiving Family analyzes what is at stake for the self, family, and society in surrogacy; through a close reading of the Bible it proposes that surrogacy is only as healthy for the individual as society’s views allow. Tumminio Hansen shows how a cultural misconception of surrogacy isolates the parents, surrogates,...
Pain disintegrates a person, fracturing self and relationships. In Living Through Pain Kristin M. Swenson charts the multifaceted personal and social problems caused by chronic pain and surveys professional...
