Now We Know Better: A New Legal Framework on Sex to Better Promote Autonomy, Equality, Diversity and Care for the Poor

Sexual relations between men and women raise fundamental questions about rights, responsibilities, autonomy, equality, and care—matters requiring a social justice framework. Contemporary U.S. law and policy have long emphasized a limited set of social justice categories including equality regarding women, individual autonomy, alleviation of poverty, and respect for diversity. These principles have guided legal development through Supreme Court decisions, nondiscrimination laws, contraception access, sex education, and family diversity protections. However, empirical research from recent decades reveals that many assumptions underlying these legal categories proved inaccurate. While autonomy, equality, family diversity, and poverty relief remain credible and important, they require significant updating and rebalancing to account for new evidence and moral insights. Alvare argues that current categories need better integration with respect for well-executed scientific research, greater emphasis on children's interests from conception forward, consideration of boys with uninvolved fathers, and attention to the family as a unit rather than only its individual members. The author contends that law and policy must rebalance these four categories and nuance them in light of decades of qualitative and quantitative research and commonsense observation. This reconceptualization would provide more effective social justice for both adults and children involved in sexual relationships and family formation.

Topics: Family Law · Civil Rights · Administrative Law

Keywords: autonomy · equality · family diversity · contraception · children · social justice · sexual relations