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Artificial Wombs, Frozen Embryos, and Parenthood: Will Ectogenesis Redistribute Gendered Responsibility for Gestation?

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Abstract

A growing body of scholarship argues that by disentangling gestation from the body, artificial wombs will alter the relationship between men, women, and fetuses such that reproduction is effectively ‘degendered’. Scholars have claimed that this purported ‘degendering’ of gestation will subsequently create greater equity between men and women. I argue that, contrary to the assumptions made in this literature, it is law, not biology, that acts as a primary barrier to the ‘degendering’ of gestation. With reference to contemporary case law involving disputes over frozen embryos, I demonstrate that though reproductive technologies have already made it possible for gendered progenitors to have an ‘equal’ say in gestation, law mires the possibilities of these technologies in traditional stories of gendered parenthood. Looking to the way binary assumptions about gender limit the self-determination of trans men and nonbinary and genderqueer people who are gestational parents, I argue the ‘degendering’ of gestation will come not with artificial wombs but with the end of limited legal paradigms for gendered gestational parenthood.

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Notes

  1. For a broader discussion of the social and legal practices (such as inconsistent parental leave, insufficient funding and support for childcare, and limited legal paradigms for recognising parenthood) that shape gender inequity in the distribution of child-rearing, see Horn and Romanis (2020).

  2. These are the three jurisdictions in which my broader research is based, and from which I therefore draw my examples. While sharing commonalities that provide a baseline for comparison (including permitting embryo cryopreservation), each is also shaped by distinct social, political, and jurisprudential approaches to parenthood, gender, and gestation that make comparison generative. With this noted, this paper is inevitably limited by offering examples only from these three Western nations, and a future project might likely find productive and helpful alternative approaches drawn from other jurisdictions.

  3. For a broader discussion of how these kinds of claims problematise the gestating body, create a limited view of what would constitute equity in parenting, and neglect the existing practices that produced inequitable distribution of child-rearing, see Horn and Romanis (2020).

  4. Ectogenesis, too, will require human oversight and labor to function: how might the work of overseeing an artificial womb simply redistribute the work of gestation onto healthcare workers? And how might this work also be gendered? For a thorough analysis of the way nursing has been left out of narratives of both incubators and artificial wombs, see Aristarkhova (2012).

  5. Davis v. Davis, 842 S.W.2d 588 Tennessee (1992).

  6. Supra n 5, at para 22.

  7. Supra n 5, at para 98

  8. Supra n 5, at para 106

  9. Supra n 5, at para 107

  10. Supra n 9.

  11. Szafranski v. Dunston, 2015 IL App (1st) 122975-B.

  12. Supra n 11, at para 126.

  13. Supra n 11, at para 127.

  14. Supra n 13.

  15. McQueen v. Gadberry. 507 S.W.3d 127 (Mo. Ct. App. 2016).

  16. Supra n 15, at para 157.

  17. Supra n 15, at para 157.

  18. S.H. v. D.H., 2019 ONCA 454.

  19. S.H. v. D.H., (2018) OJ No. 3961, at para 17.

  20. Supra n 18, at para 68.

  21. C.C. v. A.W., 2005 ABQB 290.

  22. Supra n 21, at para 10.

  23. Supra n 21, at para 9.

  24. Supra n 21, at para 21.

  25. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Section 13 (5).

  26. Supra n 25

  27. Supra n 25.

  28. ECtHR, AP., Garçon and Nicot v. France, Nos. 79885/12, 5247/13, 52596/13, ECHR 2017.

  29. R (on the application of TT) v Registrar General for England & Wales (2019) EWHC 2384 (Fam). The case was recently appealed, with the higher court upholding the decision (R (McConnell and YY) v Registrar General for England and Wales (2020) EWCA Civ 559).

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  1. Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Claire Horn

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Horn, C. Artificial Wombs, Frozen Embryos, and Parenthood: Will Ectogenesis Redistribute Gendered Responsibility for Gestation?. Fem Leg Stud 30, 51–72 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-021-09482-2

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