title: Adoption, ART, and a re-conception of the maternal body: toward embodied maternity.
abstract: We criticize a view of maternity that equates the natural with the genetic and biological and show how such a practice overdetermines the maternal body and the maternal experience for women who are mothers through adoption and ART (Assisted Reproductive Technologies). As an alternative, we propose a new framework designed to rethink maternal bodies through the lens of feminist embodiment. Feminist embodied maternity, as we call it, stresses the particularity of experience through subjective embodiment. A feminist embodied maternity emphasizes the physical relations of the subjective lived-body rather than the genetic or biological connections. Instead of universalizing claims about the maternal body, embodied maternity looks to communicable experiences and empathetic understanding.
authors.forename: Sarah-Vaughan
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Brakman
authors.forename: Sally J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Scholz
mesh_terms: D000300:Adoption / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D019513:Feminism; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000523:psychology; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D033261:Maternal-Fetal Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D036801:Parturition / Q000523:psychology; D011247:Pregnancy / Q000523:psychology; D043762:Reproductive Behavior / Q000941:ethics / Q000523:psychology*; D027724:Reproductive Techniques, Assisted / Q000523:psychology; D013240:Stereotyping; D013533:Gestational Carriers; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology