A New Maternity Uncertainty?

• In Event: Innovating Reproduction and (Re)Generating Parenthood Possibilities: Critical Studies of New Technologies

Abstract

In this chapter I argue that technological developments (paternity testing, treatment for male-factor infertility), have enhanced paternity certainty and preserved biological paternity; yet, newer reproductive technologies have the opposite effect for maternity, leading to fragmentation and uncertainty. Maternity was originally viewed as the most fundamental, undeniable, almost pre-social relationship to a child. Giving birth was proof of a biological relationship, and provided the basis for legal recognition of maternity. Adoption could fragment this; however, the birth mother’s biological maternity was never denied, she simply transferred her legal rights to another woman. With assisted reproduction, though there are now a greater number of parties who might establish maternal claims through gestational, genetic, social, or legal grounds through the use of egg donation, embryo donation, and gestational surrogacy. By historical contrast, there has long been an inability to concretely establish paternity. Early testing could only conclude whether an “alleged” father was “excluded” or not. As a work-around, the legal vestment of paternity was done via marital presumption: the husband was the established father, unless strong evidence otherwise. Technological developments have since established easier routes paternity testing, and treating male infertility has shifted from donor sperm to developments in sperm extraction allowing infertile men to use their own gametes. These developments speak to larger cultural assumptions that biology is more important in undergirding paternity than maternity.

Author

• Katherine Michelle Johnson, Tulane University