Centre for Medical Ethics and Law
University of Hong Kong
Family law for a long time focused on marriage and children born to the married couple. But today marriages often end in divorce and many children are born out of wedlock; categories of gender are not as fixed as they used to be and persons who are legally male (or have no legal gender) can give birth to children; and children are not necessarily genetically related to their birthparents or indeed may even have three genetic parents, and even more social parents. The law needs to react to societal changes and medical advances such as ART and surrogacy as a matter of urgency.