Gestation: work for hire or the essence of motherhood? A comparative legal analysis.

Motherhood is no longer a simple concept. Black’s Law Dictionary defines “mother” as “a woman who has given birth to or legally adopted a child.” Recent advances in reproductive technologies have called into question this basic definition of motherhood. Through in vitro fertilization, it is possible to extract an egg from one woman and implant the fertilized egg into the uterus of another woman, thereby severing the genetic and gestational aspects of motherhood. Depending on the identity of the intended mother, this process is known either as gestational or full surrogacy (if the egg donor is the intended mother and the birth mother is acting as a surrogate) or egg donation (if the birth mother is the intended mother and another woman acted as an egg donor). The legal mother in gestational surrogate motherhood could be the egg donor, the intended mother, the birth mother or some combination thereof. In U.S. case law, “mother” has been defined in a variety of ways, including the woman who donates an ovum and the woman who intends to be the mother of a new born. U.S. courts have held that whatever motherhood is, the Black’s Law definition of giving birth to a child is not necessarily definitive.