Reproductive Curation: Assisted Reproductive Technologies ( ARTs ) and Lesbian Motherhood‐Making

Objective This paper introduces reproductive curation, the deliberate coordination of reproductive arrangements, as a theoretical framework for examining how legal, institutional, and interpersonal factors interact with technology in shaping reproductive decision‐making, based on interviews with 32 lesbian mothers and mothers‐to‐be in China. Background China does not recognize equal marriage or parental rights, nor does it provide access to assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) for people seeking to have children outside heterosexual marriage. Method Using grounded theory, the study analyzes how participants made decisions about allocating genetic, gestational, and legal motherhood, choosing between two pathways—ROPA (reception of a partner's oocytes) and non‐ROPA—to have children. Results Participants articulated four processes of reproductive curation to achieve four goals: (a) To secure child custody through non‐ROPA or to bind intimate relationships through ROPA; (b) To optimize intergenerational resource transmission by assigning genetic and/or legal motherhood to a partner better positioned within social hierarchies; (c) To mitigate maternal risks and motherhood penalties by assigning gestation based on workplace family policies and embodied capacities for reproductive labor; and (d) To construct alternative foundations of motherhood legitimacy for non‐genetic, non‐legal co‐mothers. Conclusion Although ARTs enable reflexive reproductive decision‐making for people with minoritized sexual orientation globally, their use is shaped by local cultural norms, institutional arrangements, labor market inequalities, and intra‐couple and familial negotiations. Implications The framework explains how individuals in different contexts weigh technological options to overcome barriers and align reproductive roles with available resources and familial aspirations.