Women Be Warned, Egg Donation Isn't all it's Cracked Up to Be: The Copulation of Science and the Courts Makes Multiple Mommies

Abstract

This Recent Development proposes that California's new precedent for deciding maternity disputes arising pursuant to gestational surrogacy arrangements weakens legal protections afforded to the following populations: women who choose to donate eggs without becoming mothers, women who serve as gestational surrogates to friends or family members, and women who accept egg donations without also accepting the donor as a co-parent. The rule of law previously applied to surrogacy disputes as articulated in Johnson v. Calvert protects the interests of parties creating families through surrogacy while preserving one of the few procreative methods available to lesbian couples. The Johnson intent standard should not be limited by the Supreme Court of California's holding in K.M. v. E.G.