Liminal Experience: The Solo Mother, Fertility Clinics, and Ambiguous Loss

In this chapter, I focus on how the Solo Mother by Choice (SMBC) is represented in anti-donation discourse and in fertility clinics. Despite research evidencing that donor-conceived children are not disadvantaged, anti-donation debate focuses on the moral ambiguity of creating single parents. Although most UK clinics welcome solo patients, most fertility clinics focus on couples, biological infertility, and pregnancy loss and therefore, because SMBC often do not fit these narratives, they are sometimes overlooked and under-represented. These experiences can lead to feelings of liminality in which SMBC exist in an ambiguous space between ethical/unethical, fertility/infertile, advantaged/disadvantaged, and natural/unnatural.