Sympathetic ethnography of surrogate mothers

Frequent awesome BB suggester Avi Solomon sez, "Yes, I know I'm totally biased, but I honestly think that my wife Dr. Elly Teman's forthcoming ethnography 'Birthing a Mother' will truly blow your mind if you're concerned with how technology forms and reboots core human experiences like 'Motherhood'. Surrogacy is a hot topic nowadays but there have been very few perspectives empathetic to the actual experiences of the women involved in the process. Surrogate and intended mothers are on the frontlines of renegotiating what being a mother really entails. 'Birthing a Mother' provides an insider's account of this new terrain. This is the future that's not yet widely distributed. Read the free PDF chapter 'Surrogate Selves and Embodied Others' to get a taste of it!"

Birthing a Mother (publisher's catalog)

Sample PDF

Amazon

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Namdnal Siroj

An interesting documentary about this subject is Google Baby, by Zippi Brand Frank.
She followed people actually involved in the process: an American egg-donor, an Indian doctor who runs a clinic for surrogates, an Israeli father of a surrogate-carried daughter who starts a company as a surrogate-intermediairy.

Google Baby -> http://www.tiff.net/filmsandschedules/films/googlebaby
Anonymous

Surrogacy is only occasionally high-tech — with egg retrieval. The famous 80s case of Baby M was, as Ehrenreich put it, “the same as being conceived from an adulterous tryst at the local Travelodge” — the so-called surrogate was her biologic mother as well.
Gendun

I would like to propose a moratorium on all “body/self” references in book subtitles in all fields of the social sciences and humanities.
Avi Solomon

Thanks Cory! University of California Press was kind enough to give Boingboing readers a 20% discount code if they buy the book through the UC Press website- Just
type 10M9071 in the source code box.
Anonymous

“Surrogate and intended mothers are on the frontlines of renegotiating what being a mother really entails.”

And yet to date there isn’t anything on how this stuff affects the resultant human being. It’s always about what the adults want. There isn’t any discussion about how it might affect the child while growing up or even in their adult life.

Take a look at some of the online support groups for adults in similar situations, such as those who were adopted or conceived through sperm and/or egg donation. Many have a lifetime of questions and emotions which are not understood or respected by society. Apparently NPD and other behavioral personality disorders are a common problem: the kind of adults who override nature to get what they want often make terrible parents.