Book excerpt: Presents a woman-centered, class-sensitive way of understanding motherhood and the family in the face of scientific advances in genetics and fertility technology. Claims that the real needs of people in families have been swept aside in an attempt to reduce the complex process of human reproduction to a clinical event controlled by medical technology. Suggests ways to accomplish social and legal changes that would allow technological advances and evolving gender roles to affirm the mother-child relationship without cost to women's identities. This edition contains a new chapter on how advances in reproductive technology and genetics combine with new marketing to pose troubling social questions. Originally published in 1989 by W. W. Norton and Company. The author teaches sociology at the City University of New York. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR