Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

130 JOHN BERKMAN
birth. On this view, the appropriate (albeit limited) analogy for
the woman’s decision to gestate an embryo is to be drawn, not
with the decision to participate in an act of sexual intercourse,
but rather with the decision to nurture a child by nursing.
Of course, this possibility of separating genetic motherhood
from gestational motherhood is fundamentally new. This paper
can only gesture towards a few of the many implications that
can be drawn about either the good or bad implications of this
new possibility. However, it can at least be noted that at present,
greater significance, morally speaking, is typically given to
genetic parenthood, but the opportunity is presented at this
point in time to reevaluate this prevalent assumption.
In the current debate regarding the adoption of frozen
embryos, it is typical to equate (or almost equate) genetic parenthood
with parenthood per se. Of course, in the normal and
ideal course of events the genetic, gestational, and “raising” elements
of parenthood all go together. But since it is now clear
that genetic and gestational “motherhood” can be separated,
why is it so readily assumed that providing an ovum qualifies
one as the mother of a child, even after the created embryo has
been implanted in the womb of another woman? On the contrary,
a woman’s consenting to gestate a child, to give a child life
that it otherwise could not have, can certainly be argued to be at
least as biologically significant in terms of what is necessary for
the child to actually be born. And if one does separate the act of
consent to the creation of an embryo and the act of consent to
gestate a child, it can certainly be argued that the latter is more
morally significant in terms of a choice to become a human
mother. While this is a subject that will require much more evaluation,
it is certainly possible to make a case that, by the very act
of gestation, the woman becomes the child’s mother in the most
important and profound sense. The unquestioned priority that is
typically given to the genetic element of parenthood must begin
to be questioned. 30
30 On the one hand, it is no doubt a very good thing to recognize the natural
bond between children and their biological parents, so that e.g. nationstates
or other governmental institutions cannot wrest control of children