New Motherhood? Embodiment and Relationships in the Assisted Reproductive Technology

Abstract

In the assisted reproductive technologies (ART) debate an important discussion concerns the practice of “maternity for others”, better known as “surrogacy”. The dynamics that this scenario implies do not characterize a single context, but are extended on a global scale: they affect couples, women who lend themselves to being “carrier mothers” and the unborn child and thus raise both moral questions about the appropriateness of recourse to such interventions and complex problems of global justice. The article tries to analyze the dynamics involved, in particular with regard to the dimension of commercialization, corporeity and relationships, to try to understand which new forms motherhood, fatherhood and more generally parenting can take.