In English law, legal motherhood is allocated to the person who gestated. However, we argue that gestation—legally denoted as the “natural” source of parenting obligations—is often constructed as mothering, rather than the precursor to it. This means that women and pregnant people are treated as mothers prior to birth in legal and medical contexts. Since legal motherhood is an important status, defining the role an individual plays in a child’s life, the conflation of gestation and motherhood does not reflect that, legally, a fetus does not have personhood. This blurring between gestation and motherhood is metaphysically incoherent, as a fetus is not an entity that can be parented. This conflation poses a real harm to pregnant people’s autonomy, specifically those who do not intend to parent or who do not identify as women. More broadly, the medico-legal conflation of gestation and mothering is autonomy-limiting for all pregnant people as, resultantly, they may be coerced into obstetric intervention through legal processes. We argue for a better recognition of the differences between gestation and mothering, to promote autonomy and reflect the very different ways families may be formed.

中文翻译：

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关于妊娠和母性

在英国法律中，合法的母亲身份分配给怀孕的人。然而，我们认为妊娠——在法律上被称为育儿义务的“自然”来源——通常被构建为母性，而不是母性的前身。这意味着在法律和医学背景下，妇女和孕妇在出生前被视为母亲。由于合法的母性是一个重要的身份，定义了一个人在孩子的生活中扮演的角色，因此将妊娠和母性混为一谈并不能反映出胎儿在法律上没有人格。妊娠和母性之间的这种模糊在形而上学上是不连贯的，因为胎儿不是一个可以养育的实体。这种混淆对孕妇的自主权造成了真正的伤害，特别是那些不打算为人父母或不认同自己为女性的人。更广泛地，妊娠和孕育在医学上与法律上的混淆限制了所有孕妇的自主权，因为他们可能被迫通过法律程序进行产科干预。我们主张更好地认识到妊娠和母性之间的差异，以促进自主并反映可能形成家庭的截然不同的方式。