From Need to Right: The Legalization of Genetic Motherhood

Abstract

In the early 1990s, the new technologies have turned conception, pregnancy and childbirth — formerly an indivisible process — into separable reproductive ‘services’; this fragmentation of the reproductive process appears to be a prerogative for the commercialization of motherhood. Commodification of reproductive services, body parts, and fluids moves to the centre of the debate. The possibility of buying or selling sperm or eggs, or renting out the womb as a gestating space is no longer a science fiction scenario: frequent advertisements for surrogate mothers, sperm and egg donors indicate the emergence of a market inhabited by sellers, buyers and brokers. A ‘reproductive marketplace’ is both welcomed and fiercely rejected. Time magazine, for instance, lauds the number of reproductive ‘options’ that doctors are now able to offer to their clients; women should appreciate the many ‘choices’ that offer them ‘reproductive autonomy.’ By contrast, radical feminists consider the fragmentation and commercialization of the reproductive process the ultimate exploitation of women. Not coincidentally, both groups frame their arguments in terms of ‘rights’: the right to choose from a number of reproductive options versus the right of women to retain their reproductive integrity.

Within the space of a single dazzling week this fall, this hoary old noun [mother] was redefined so thoroughly, in such mutually exclusive ways, that what it means now depends on which edition of the newspaper you read.

(Katha Pollitt, The Nation)

It [the definition of legal motherhood] is so uncharted. Depending on what court you happen to walk into, you get a different outcome.

(Dr James Goldfarb, quoted in the Los Angeles Times)