Law Commons^™

Of Woman Born? Technology, Relationship, And The Right To A Human Mother, Jennifer S. Hendricks

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the legal implications of a scientific fantasy: the fantasy of building artificial wombs that could gestate a human child from conception. It takes as its touchstone a claim by sociologist Barbara Katz Rothman, who writes, “Every human child has a right to a human mother.”

While the article discusses the legal principles that would apply to artificial wombs, it is skeptical about the technological possibility of artificial wombs in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, the focus of the article is the effect that the fantasy of artificial gestation has on the legal discourse around pregnancy and reproduction today. …