When a child can have a genetic mother, a gestational mother, and a social mother – all three being different people – what exactly does “mother” mean? This is not a hypothetical question. It is the lived reality that New Reproductive Technologies (NRT) have introduced into families around the world. Technologies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), surrogacy, sperm and egg donation, and reciprocal IVF are not just medical procedures. They are reshaping one of the most fundamental social institutions: kinship. From a sociological standpoint, NRT challenge the long-held assumptions about what makes someone a parent, what constitutes a family, and where the boundary between “natural” and “social” truly lies.
Table of Contents
What are new reproductive technologies?
NRT is a broad term covering medical and technological interventions that assist in human reproduction. The most common include in vitro fertilization (IVF), in which an egg is fertilized outside the body before being implanted into the uterus; surrogacy, in which a woman carries a pregnancy on behalf of another person or couple; donor insemination, which uses sperm from a third-party donor; and egg donation, which allows a woman to use another person’s eggs. More recently, reciprocal IVF has become available for female same-sex couples, enabling one partner to provide eggs while the other carries the pregnancy – allowing both to share a biological connection to the child.
According to Britannica, by the early 21st century, procedures like IVF, surrogate motherhood, and artificial insemination had become part of the cultural repertoire of many ordinary people, and the study of kinship had joined with the sociological study of science and medicine to provide a rich framework for understanding how bodies, procreation, and technology intersect. The implications of being technologically able to intervene in reproduction suggest that kinship may take on entirely new meanings – and in turn affect broader social knowledge practices.
Kinship beyond biology: a sociological shift
Sociologists and anthropologists have long debated whether kinship is primarily biological or social. For much of Western history, the dominant view was that family ties were rooted in blood and genetics. NRT have fundamentally unsettled this assumption. Research published in PubMed shows that as a consequence of reproductive technologies, the boundaries between the biological and social bases of kinship have become blurred, and that reproductive technologies challenge previously held cultural constructions of kinship, bringing about new kinds of social relations in which kinship boundaries are redefined.
Sociologist Marilyn Strathern was among the first to theorize this shift rigorously. As summarized in academic analyses of her work, Strathern argued that NRT raise new questions about the possibility of multiple connections between children and their parents, and that nature can no longer be considered as the grounding for culture – it is partly produced through technological intervention. For Strathern, kinship is significant precisely because Euro-American thought has always treated it as the place where nature and culture intersect. NRT disturb that intersection irreversibly.
Research in the journal Enfances Familles Générations further argues that the widespread use of assisted reproductive technologies has contributed to some of the major transformations faced by the Western kinship model over the past few decades – both by significantly changing how reproduction is perceived and by directly impacting contemporary family structures and dynamics. When IVF substitutes for sexual intercourse, it does not simply replicate natural conception; it “artificializes the very facts of life,” making the previously natural appear manipulated and manipulatable.
Redefining motherhood
Motherhood was once considered the most unambiguous of all kinship roles. You always knew who the mother was. NRT have changed that entirely. Today, motherhood can be disaggregated into at least three distinct roles: the genetic mother (who provides the egg), the gestational mother (who carries the pregnancy), and the social mother (who raises the child). These three roles can be held by three different people simultaneously.
A study on commercial surrogacy and the redefinition of motherhood notes that since the 1970s, the addition of a third party – the surrogate – to the reproductive environment has subtly changed the nature of motherhood, fatherhood, and the allocation of parental rights. Surrogacy effectively separates the social and nurturing part of motherhood from the genetic contribution and the birthing process. This raises a fundamental question that sociology must grapple with: is a mother defined by genetics, gestation, or care?
The academic study unit on NRT and kinship at eGyanKosh (IGNOU) notes that reproductive technologies have created a new way to make mothers – a new origin myth, as it were. Earlier, motherhood was culturally and legally established through genetic kinship claims based on a nuclear family structure. Today, reproductive technologies have widened the scope of motherhood to include possibilities that no longer rest on simple biological claims or traditional family structure.
Redefining fatherhood
Fatherhood has undergone an equally significant transformation. Historically, biological paternity was uncertain (unlike maternity), and social fatherhood – the role of raising a child – was shaped by legal and marital norms. NRT have introduced new layers of complexity here too. Sperm donation means a genetic father may have no social relationship with the child whatsoever. Conversely, a social father with no genetic link to the child may be the child’s primary parent in every meaningful sense.
In cross-border surrogacy cases, legal systems have struggled to keep pace with these shifts. Research in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law highlights that parenthood is not just a legal but also a social concept, and that its legal definition is fluid, reflecting the broader social, political, economic, and cultural background in which it operates. In surrogacy arrangements specifically, the question of fatherhood has increasingly been resolved through genetic connection rather than the act of birth or marriage – a significant departure from older legal and social norms.
Families of choice and the social basis of kinship
Perhaps the most far-reaching sociological consequence of NRT is the rise of what scholars call “families of choice” – kinship networks built not on biology alone but on intention, love, and deliberate social bonds. This is particularly visible in LGBTQ+ family formation, where NRT has been transformative.
Research in Anthropology Review documents how same-sex couples who formed families using reproductive technologies often went through more intentional family formation processes than heterosexual couples. The construction of kinship in such families does not base itself solely on ties of blood, but also on ties of friendship and love – in essence building a “family of choice” that incorporates people chosen to be part of the child’s life.
Reciprocal IVF offers a particularly compelling example. A sociological study published in Sociology (SAGE) found that in two-mother families formed through reciprocal IVF, mothers held complex, creative, and sometimes contradictory understandings of the multiple motherhoods within their family – genetic, epigenetic, and gestational. Mothers took an active and strategic approach to constructing kinship, showing that biological connection, shared substances, and the quality of the parent-child relationship all contributed to how kinship was understood and negotiated.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine has formally stated that individuals and couples should have access to fertility services irrespective of marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity – a position that reflects how medicine, ethics, and social norms are co-evolving in response to NRT.
Cultural variation: NRT is not a universal story
While much of the academic literature on NRT and kinship originates in Western contexts, the cultural implications of these technologies vary significantly across societies. A study published in Frontiers in Sociology examining ART in Iran – a unique case in the Muslim world – shows how cultural and religious beliefs jointly shape the legalization and practice of ART. Iran permits third-party reproduction in most of its forms under Shia jurisprudence, unlike most Sunni-majority countries where it is forbidden. The result is that ART has led to the emergence of families where children may have one or more genetic parents different from the infertile couple, drastically changing the structure of the traditional family and promoting new forms of families. These possibilities result in new forms of social kinship and relatedness that differ from biological kinship.
In India, childlessness remains socially stigmatized, and research published in Social Science & Medicine shows that strong cultural power norms – including gender stereotypes, marriage expectations, and definitions of motherhood and fatherhood – construct identities and influence reproductive journeys in ways that make achieving reproductive autonomy far more complex than in Western settings. Surrogacy in India is often kept secret, reflecting both societal stigma and the economic motivations of surrogates.
Ethical and legal challenges
NRT do not just raise philosophical questions about kinship – they raise pressing legal and ethical ones. Who has parental rights over a child born through surrogacy? What happens when a surrogate changes her mind? Who is legally responsible for a child born through anonymous sperm donation?
Research on kinship practices in alternative family forms notes that there are two competing lines of scholarship on NRT’s implications: some scholars argue that ART has completely changed our understanding of relatedness, while others show that its use is strongly shaped by traditional kinship conceptions that attempt to preserve existing practices. Both perspectives are partially correct – NRT simultaneously disrupts and reinscribes kinship norms, depending on the social and cultural context.
A critical interpretative review in PLOS ONE argues that surrogacy cannot be detached from cultural meanings and ideological ideals concerning motherhood, parenthood, kinship, rights and justice, and ideas of agency. There is no neutral way to approach the issue, and controversies are intimately tied to values that go far beyond scientific facts. This underlines why sociological analysis – rather than purely medical or legal frameworks – is essential for understanding what NRT means for kinship.
The broader sociological significance
What NRT ultimately reveals is that kinship has always been partially constructed – a mix of biological fact and social meaning. What has changed is that the biological fact itself is now variable and negotiable. A child can have five people with some claim to parenthood: a genetic father (sperm donor), a genetic mother (egg donor), a gestational mother (surrogate), and two social parents (the intended couple). The question of which of these relationships counts as “real” kinship is no longer answered by biology alone. It is answered by law, culture, intention, and care.
This shift has profound consequences for how societies organize inheritance, citizenship, medical decision-making, and emotional belonging. Scholars Edwards, Franklin, Hirsch, Price, and Strathern argued as early as 1993 that kinship provides the context within which people think about the social implications of NRT, and that as human reproduction creates not only new life but new kin relations, technologies that assist in the conception of new life both create and redefine kinship ties. That argument has only grown more relevant in the decades since.
NRT also push us to take seriously the concept of the family of choice as a legitimate sociological category – not a deviation from the norm, but an emerging norm in itself. As the eGyanKosh study on NRT and kinship observes, family is no longer seen only as a unit for reproduction; it can be a non-procreative unit, where ties are based on ideology, choice, and love, standing in opposition to the biological model of kinship. These families of choice challenge the biologically modeled heterosexual domain of kinship that has historically dominated social and legal structures.
What do you think? As NRT continue to evolve – with possibilities like gene editing and embryo selection on the horizon – how should societies legally and culturally define parenthood when biology no longer provides a clear answer? And in a world where a child can have multiple biological and social parents, does the traditional concept of the nuclear family still serve as a meaningful social unit?
References
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship/Reproductive-technologies-social-innovation-and-the-future-of-kinship-studies
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16234204/
- https://www.academia.edu/36377240/New_Reproductive_Technologies_vis_a_vis_Kinship_System
- https://journals.openedition.org/efg/493
- https://philarchive.org/archive/WILCSA-9
- https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/79059/1/Unit-11.pdf
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09649069.2024.2344935
- https://anthropologyreview.org/anthropology-explainers/the-impact-of-assisted-reproductive-technologies-on-kinship-and-marriage/
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380385231212398
- https://www.asrm.org/practice-guidance/ethics-opinions/access-to-fertility-treatment-irrespective-of-marital-status-sexual-orientation-or-gender-identity-an-ethics-committee-opinion-2021/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7903672/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1353829222000302
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8294648/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7721025/
- https://www.proquest.com/openview/2cb9653beadba1ae79493e0c094891a2/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=47867
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