“IP Memoirs”: Motherhood in the Age of Surrogacy

Abstract

IP Memoirs - memoirs by women who have become mothers via a gestational surrogate's contractual labor which turns them into IPs (Intended Parents) - are a recent literary phenomenon situated in a particular forcefield of morally charged, legally contested and socially tested debates and discourses. The contribution looks at select examples of "IP memoirs" and analyzes the narrative and argumentative strategies employed to explain, illustrate and justify the road taken towards motherhood.