No, 94-Year Old Zsa Zsa Would Not Be a “Mother”

I know this is celebrity junk, but there is a kernel of importance here.  Zsa Zsa Gabor is experiencing a difficult time with the kind of severe health problems and other vicissitudes of old age that one might expect in a woman of 94 years.  But her (creep) husband has told CNN he wants her to again be a mother.  From the story:

But when does pursuing fame cross the line for a 94-year old? That point may have come this week, when her husband of 25 years told CNN that he had started the process of donor matching and blood work so he could turn Zsa Zsa into Ma Ma.That’s right, the esteemed Prince Frederic von Anhalt is planning to arrange for an egg donor, surrogate mother, and artificial  insemination to allow Zsa Zsa to once again enjoy the wonder of motherhood.

Let’s see: She wouldn’t be biologically related.  She wouldn’t be able to actually raise any baby so purchased born.  It would be to treat the hypothetical future child as a trinket for whatever purpose the elderly couple (and I suspect, as the story notes, this is all the husband) is considering doing this.  So no, Zsa Zsa would not be a mother in any of the real senses of the word.

But, this story tells us something useful about the impact of IVF on our ethics and how that technology has led to an increasingly crass and consumerist view of procreation.  And in the wild wild West world of IVF, I know no law that would prevent a clinic and surrogate from trying to make Zsa Zsa a “mother.”