Adoption, ART, and a Re-Conception of the Maternal Body: Toward Embodied Maternity

Abstract

We criticize a view of maternity that equates the natural with the genetic and biological and show how such a practice overdetermines the maternal body and the maternal experience for women who are mothers through adoption and ART (Assisted Reproductive Technologies). As an alternative, we propose a new framework designed to rethink maternal bodies through the lens of feminist embodiment. Feminist embodied maternity, as we call it, stresses the particularity of experience through subjective embodiment. A feminist embodied maternity emphasizes the physical relations of the subjective lived-body rather than the genetic or biological connections. Instead of universalizing claims about the maternal body, embodied maternity looks to communicable experiences and empathetic understanding.

Postmenopausal Motherhood Reloaded: Advanced Age and In Vitro Derived Gametes

“…Although the presence of the genetic link is sometimes seen as the ultimate marker of parent–child connections, as a necessary, or at least as a desirable component of such relationships, there are also those who warn about the negative effects of the unquestioned attachment to it. It has been argued that the belief in the power of this type of connection encourages some parents to see themselves as somehow the “owners” or the “sovereigns” of their genetic offspring (LaFollette ; Archard , 9–10, 142–45; Brakman and Scholz , 60). According to some authors, the emphasis on the genetic link to one's children is not only misguided but also harmful, and betrays “an unwarranted emphasis on the importance of biological as opposed to social connectedness” (Levy and Lotz , 243).…”

“…). Concerns such as these are not new and fit into a broader set of criticism of ARTs by feminist authors (see, for example, Spallone and Steinberg ; Brakman and Scholz , 63) for their potential to further stunt rather than expand women's autonomy.…”

“…Effectively, therefore, a woman may be able to access fertility treatment after her eligibility for adoption has passed: a regulatory inconsistency that, in those legislatures, drives people toward using ARTs when they could adopt instead with lower costs to everyone involved. This is further aggravated by the valuing of the creation of children as a necessary component of becoming a parent and the subsequent perception of adoption as a viable choice only for when all else has failed (Bartholet 1994/1999; Brakman and Scholz ).…”

What Are Parents For?: Reproductive Ethics after the Nonidentity Problem

“…There are, of course, multiple reasons why adopted persons search for their biological parents, including to gain information about genetic health history and to come to terms with “concerns about why they were ‘given away’ or ‘given up’. “ 44 Pace the “new psychology of the adopted,” however, knowledge of biological ties does not appear essential for a person to have a strong sense of self, though some adopted persons do at times feel a need for this knowledge. Whether it would be wrong deliberately to bring into being a child who would be deprived of this knowledge, or would need to search it out, is certainly debatable 45 .…”

“…It might appear that we have not gotten very far toward answering my question, but I want to consider further the reasons why adopted persons search for their biological parents. I listed two motivations: to gain information about genetic health history, and to come to terms with “concerns about why they were ‘given away’ or ‘given up’.” Now, persons whose adoptions were open instead of closed, as most adoptions used to be, do not typically have these motivations: the genetic information is already available, and they often know why their birth parents chose adoption 46 . Yet it is remarkable that many of these persons search for their parents nonetheless.…”