Is What We Want What We Need, and Can We Get It in Writing? The Third-Wave of Feminism Hits the Beach of Modern Parentage Presumptions

Modern statutes on parentage regarding artificial insemination and the cases that have interpreted them reflect the explosion of family gender roles by second-wave feminism. Although a natural father now is generally expected to share the rights and obligations of parentage with a natural mother, this is not so if he is a mere contributor of biological material. Are the modern presumptions underlying such statutes, what we used to want, what we have come to need? Or, is current law too much a reflection of the essentialism for which the second-wave is sometimes justly criticized?Third-wave individualism and resistance to inflexible doctrine supply interesting lenses for an examination of the developing law in this area. Particularly, a recent Kansas 1 case, In the Interest of K.M.H., is the first to evaluate a statute designed to give power to individual choice by making a parentage presumption secondary to an agreement between a woman and a sperm donor that the donor will be treated as a parent.This paper explores the context and outcome of this case and whether we have exhausted the limits of legal reform that can be achieved through the creation of- even progressive - presumptions about parentage. Given the changes wrought under the influence of the second-wave, do such presumptions retain vitality and usefulness? Or, do they produce only a different, but not necessarily better, set of obstacles to formation and preservation of individual families and their informed choices

Multidimensional signals and analytic flexibility: Estimating degrees of freedom in human speech analyses

Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis which can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time. Even greater flexibility is to be expected in fields in which the primary data lend themselves to a variety of possible operationalizations. The multidimensional, temporally extended nature of speech constitutes an ideal testing ground for assessing the variability in analytic approaches, which derives not only from aspects of statistical modeling, but also from decisions regarding the quantification of the measured behavior. In the present study, we gave the same speech production data set to 46 teams of researchers and asked them to answer the same research question, resulting insubstantial variability in reported effect sizes and their interpretation. Using Bayesian meta-analytic tools, we further find little to no evidence that the observed variability can be explained by analysts’ prior beliefs, expertise or the perceived quality of their analyses. In light of this idiosyncratic variability, we recommend that researchers more transparently share details of their analysis, strengthen the link between theoretical construct and quantitative system and calibrate their (un)certainty in their conclusions

Is What We Want What We Need, and Can We Get It in Writing? The Third-Wave of Feminism Hits the Beach of Modern Parentage Presumptions

Modern statutes on parentage regarding artificial insemination and the cases that have interpreted them reflect the explosion of family gender roles by second-wave feminism. Although a natural father now is generally expected to share the rights and obligations of parentage with a natural mother, this is not so if he is a mere contributor of biological material. Are the modern presumptions underlying such statutes, what we used to want, what we have come to need? Or, is current law too much a reflection of the essentialism for which the second-wave is sometimes justly criticized?Third-wave individualism and resistance to inflexible doctrine supply interesting lenses for an examination of the developing law in this area. Particularly, a recent Kansas 1 case, In the Interest of K.M.H., is the first to evaluate a statute designed to give power to individual choice by making a parentage presumption secondary to an agreement between a woman and a sperm donor that the donor will be treated as a parent.This paper explores the context and outcome of this case and whether we have exhausted the limits of legal reform that can be achieved through the creation of- even progressive - presumptions about parentage. Given the changes wrought under the influence of the second-wave, do such presumptions retain vitality and usefulness? Or, do they produce only a different, but not necessarily better, set of obstacles to formation and preservation of individual families and their informed choices