My sister, my daughter...

Salon.com: By Carol Lloyd

Here's something our grandmothers didn't have to worry about -- or our mothers. Actually, we don't need to worry about this, either, but in the funhouse of new family planning, what's possible now seems probable, so even the weirdest mirrors are worth looking into, and wondering about the world we're creating. As reported by the BBC, a woman has frozen her embryos for her 7-year-old daughter, who has a chromosomal condition that will prevent her from bearing children of her own. Some experts say it is the first case of mother-to-daughter egg donation. The child could then reenact the famous scene from 'Chinatown' ('My sister! My daugher!') without so much as a whiff of scandal.

It's hard to see donating one's egg to one's daughter as anything but an act of maternal love, but some critics suggest it sets a dangerous precedent. 'In psychiatry we are hearing more and more of children suffering from identity problems, and specifically a condition called 'genealogical bewilderment,'' Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, told the BBC. 'Could it possibly get more bewildering than this?'...

"We have to stop thinking of women only in terms of their reproductive potential. The daughter could live a full and happy life without having children of her own." While reproductive technology seems to offer women a miraculous range of options, I wonder if we are not also imbibing a subtler, far less liberating message. That anything less than motherhood is tragedy.