27.09.2024Workshop with Dr. M.I. Mirella Peereboom-van Drunick

The URPP “Human Reproduction Reloaded” has the pleasure to invite you to the workshop “Family law and reproduction Rights from a Dutch perspective” byDr. M.I. Mirella Peereboom-van Drunick from the University of Amsterdam.

The workshop will take place on 27 September 2024 from 9.15-11.45 am (KOL-E-13)
 If interested in attending, please fill in the form below.

Dr. M.I. Peereboom-van Drunick is a lecturer on private law at the University of Amsterdam. She specializes in family (property) law. Her research focuses on the liberalization of the law of descent in relation to current reproductive technologies.  Much has been written in recent years about the liberalization of family law; however, less research has been done on whether it is desirable to contractualize the law of descent in the Netherlands and whether the systematics of contract law are an appropriate basis for the future of family law.

In this workshop, participants will engage with the concept of surrogacy and questions related to the legal regulation of surrogacy from a Dutch perspective. The workshop will begin with a general overview of Dutch family law, followed by an introduction to the laws of descent and parental responsibility under Dutch law. After that, the bill on surrogacy - which is currently pending in the Netherlands – will be discussed in a broader perspective. In the Netherlands, we have faced challenges with regard to unmarried women who were forced to give up their children and their subsequent adoptions in the 1950s and 1980s, as well as international adoptions in the 1970s and 1980s. An important point will be made on the availability of identity information and the right to know one’s origins. While colonization may possibly be a smaller risk in this context of surrogacy in present times, the risks of exploitation of vulnerable women (often from socio-economic weaker countries) and commodification of a child is something to take into consideration when regulating (or prohibiting) reproduction by means of a surrogate. Participants are invited to join in a fruitful discussion on all questions raised.