Modern technology (IVF, donor eggs and sperm, surrogacy, and chemistry that can temporarily reverse menopause) has led us to ponder questions that we never had to confront before. What makes a parent? Is it a genetic link, the act of giving birth, the people who live with and raise a child, the person who paid for all the above to happen, or something else hidden in the Byzantine laws that have hastily grown up around these new technologies?
The case of MaryBeth Lewis combines all these questions. When her children grew up, she wanted more, and gave birth to her 13th child at the age of 62. But she still wanted more. For the next pregnancy, she used frozen embryos created with purchased sperm and eggs and a surrogate mother. But she didn't tell her husband Bob, and instead signed his name on the legal contracts. Twins were born in October of 2023, when Lewis was 66. By then, her scheme had started to unravel, and the twins were sent to foster parents, who still have them two years later and want to adopt them. Lewis was charged with felony fraud, yet she went to court to gain custody of the twins. The question is, who do those children belong to? Read the story in this gripping account at the New York Times, or at the Internet Archive. -via Damn Interesting
(Unrelated image credit: MultipleParent)