Reception of oocytes from a partner

Last year, at the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, feminist icon Germaine Greer scolded gay parents Sir Elton John and David Furnish for naming Furnish as the mother of their two sons on the children's respective birth certificates, each born to the same surrogate mother (Buckley, 2015). Greer said: ‘Sometimes I think that really the problem is the concept of motherhood, which we can't give any real structure to.’

Some might argue that the concept is further challenged by lesbian couples who wish to share biological motherhood, essentially creating a two-mother child—but with an anonymous father—through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) involving reception of oocytes from a partner (ROPA). In this procedure, one partner achieves genetic motherhood by providing her oocytes, which have been fertilised by donor sperm—so are, therefore, embryos—and the other partner achieves gestational motherhood when the embryos are transferred to her uterus; she becomes pregnant and gives birth.