Social construction of Family

“Infertility, or inability to conceive, is a problem of global proportions, affecting between 8 and 12 percent of couples worldwide.” (Inhorn, 2003; 1837). Introduction of New Reproductive Technologies brought new hopes and dreams for infertile couples as well as new contradictions and social dilemmas.
In case of new reproductive technologies, money and power are the leading rules of defining motherhood and motherhood becomes a class issue. Defining motherhood creates “naturalization” of one mother and “denaturalization” of the other, as one of them becomes partial citizen (Schrauwers, 2005; “The New (non) Reproductive Technologies”). Organizations are responsible for creating partial citizens, egg donors and surrogate mothers for becoming ones. However we need not to blame participants as the problem is far more complicated than a women’s choice to become or not to become an egg donor or surrogate mother, as it is clearly seen in the commercial vs. altruistic surrogacy contradiction dealing with appropriate gender norms.

Clinics with new reproductive technologies provide many services; IVF (in vitro fertilization) and Gestational surrogacy are two of them. It is necessary to define them in order to proceed and understand dilemmas of defining motherhood. “Gestational surrogacy means that eggs from one women are fertilized with her partners sperm (occasionally, donor eggs or sperm are used in place of gametes of one partner from the paying patient couple) and then transferred to the uterus of a different woman who gestates the pregnancy,” (Thompson, 2001; 178) and becomes gestational surrogate. Wikipedia encyclopedia provides definitions of two major types of contracted motherhood in surrogacy: The first one is a partial or genetic contracted motherhood, in which the surrogate is impregnated with the sperm of the commissioning male, (usually through artificial insemination). In these cases, the surrogate mother is both the genetic and gestational mother of the child. The second one is complete or gestational contracted motherhood using in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Intended Parents produce an embryo that can then be transplanted into the surrogate mother for her to gestate and give birth to after nine months. In gestational contracted motherhood the contracted mother makes no genetic contribution to the child, however she is the child’s birth mother.

IVF or in vitro fertilization is a technique in which egg cells are fertilized outside the mother's body in cases where conception is difficult or impossible through normal intercourse. In brief, the process involves removing ova from the woman's body and letting sperm fertilize them in a fluid medium. The fertilized eggs are then transferred to the womens uterus where normal development occurs. IVF is used commonly when the father's sperm count is low or the mother's fallopian tubes are blocked. (Wikipedia encyclopedia).

Second most important issue that needs to be analyzed is the motherhood itself. A concept of motherhood in dealing with NRT is far from Universal as different societies have different norms. Major contradictions can be find when comparing different societies such as Australia, Egypt and Western countries, especialy United States. In case of Australia “ … adoption legislation … defines the birth mother as the legal mother regardless of the origin of the embryo or ovum.” (Anleu,1992; 32). At the opposite end is the inverse definition of motherhood in Egypt. It is strictly based on genes and genetic inheritence, no IVF donor is allowed. “Islamic doctrine prohibits also legal adoption for the same reason it disallows IVF donation practices- namely, lack of biological connection and inheritence” (Inhorn, 2003;1847). “ Different situation prevails in the United States, (where) there has been little governmental debate on surrogacy … the legal status or enforcibility of surrogacy contracts is unclear.” (Anleu,1992;36). The issue of surrogacy in US is mostly guided by money, in short, those who pay are those who will get the baby. The motherhood is unclear but what is clear is that none of these societies “allows” more than two biological parents and this is where the dillema begins with NRT. As Shalyn Roach Anleu mentiones in her article , “usualy it is assumed that a child’s genetic mother, birth, legal, and social mothers are the same person, but when surrogacy involves in vitro fertilization a child can have four mothers: different women can provide ovum, gestate the embryo and give birth, be defined in law as having maternity rights and obligatons, and provide parenting.” How then is motherhood constructed ?