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Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Changing Conceptions of Motherhood?

Fresno Pacific University, szh{at}fpu.edu

American society has typically associated motherhood with biology. Assisted reproductive technologies (ART's) challenge this view by fragmenting motherhood into the social, the genetic, and the gestational. To ascertain the extent to which such a challenge has actually succeeded in changing societal understandings of motherhood, this study explored court cases involving four types of ART's. The findings suggest that although these ART's have the potential to re-create societal conceptions of motherhood, such a change has yet to occur in toto. Rather, certain aspects of biological motherhood continue to be seen as more permanent than social motherhood.

Key Words: assisted reproductive technologies • family • motherhood

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