The end of motherhood as we have known it
Mann, P.S.
Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine new York 65(3): 195-200; Discussion 215-23
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0027-2507 PMID: 9615571 Document Number: 496272
The new reproductive technologies have dramatic social implications, undermining previous biological assumptions about the relationships between mothers and fathers and children within families. Insofar as we may now distinguish between genetic motherhood, gestational motherhood, and social motherhood, three different women may participate in the decision to produce a child. Who is its "real" mother? Given the complicated interpenetration of nature and technology within reproductive situations today, we need to develop new social accounts of what it means to create a family. We require new narratives that highlight the wondrous kinship possibilities afforded by the new reproductive technologies while at the same time articulating the responsibilities of parenthood within new familial groupings.