Third-party conception or reproduction involves using donated eggs, sperm or embryos, or a surrogate, to help individuals or couples have a child. Being able to start and build a family is frequently seen as personally, culturally and socially important. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, describes the family as the “fundamental unit of society”. For many people, third-party conception is critical in achieving this goal, particularly for single individuals, individuals in same-sex relationships, and mixed-sex couples experiencing infertility.
We invite submissions that explore the various forms that third-party conception can take and the wide-ranging meanings for those involved.

Identifying, negotiating with and relating to a potential donor, recipient or surrogate can be a complex process. Sometimes, this is undertaken informally, outside of a clinic or sperm bank or without the involvement of a commercial agency, broker or advocacy group. For example, an individual or couple might approach someone they know (a friend or family member), enquire through informal networks, place an advertisement, or search for potential donors, recipients, surrogates or co-parents via a ‘connection’ website or app, or a social media platform. These informal, private, self-arranged or DIY approaches to third-party conception are the focus of this special issue. Once the individual or couple identify a potential donor, surrogate or co-parent, they might sometimes draw on the assistance of legal and healthcare professionals to formalise the arrangement in a legal contract and to facilitate insemination or implantation, or they might continue with informal ways of negotiating, relating and conceiving.

The state plays a significant role in regulating, recognizing, and sometimes criminalizing, forms of third-party reproduction, determining which kinship formations are legitimate, enforceable, or even possible. Even in informal or self-arranged reproductive exchanges, state oversight typically remains present — whether through laws on surrogacy, donor anonymity, parental recognition, or the governance of assisted reproduction. At the same time, informal third-party reproduction can also reflect resistance to state-sanctioned norms of family and reproduction, as people navigate gaps in legislation, market constraints, or the politics of access to reproductive technologies. In this special issue, we aim to provide a forum for sharing and exploring people’s experiences of informal third-party conception and multidisciplinary perspectives on its personal, cultural and social significance and implications.

We live in an increasingly globalised world; however, the ways in which informal third-party conception is understood, represented, practiced and experienced, and its significance and implications, are likely to differ across geographical, cultural, economic and political contexts. For example, how informal third-party conception is practiced will be mediated by access to technology and digital resources, while the very notion of third-party conception is subverted by kinship practices in many tribal communities. Perspectives on informal third-party conception among people living in the Global South or community arrangements among indigenous peoples particularly call for further research. For example, what types of informal third-party conception practices continue to take place or are newly constructed in these communities in light of technologies becoming increasingly present? How has the presence of these technologies changed or shaped indigenous practices? This special issue offers an opportunity to amplify the voices of marginalised groups and to provide a more holistic perspective on informal third-party conception.

We welcome a diversity of submissions that present cutting-edge and innovative scholarship from international contexts and at the intersections of multiple disciplines (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology, medicine, philosophy, ethics, law, criminology, history, human geography, social policy). Submissions might include (but are not limited to): Original Research, Systematic and Narrative Reviews, Data Reports, Community Case Studies, Case Reports, Theoretical Perspectives, Methodological Papers, and Opinions. The goal is to bring together and showcase the breadth of theoretical, methodological and empirical scholarship in this field.

Suggested areas include:

• Historical and cultural representations of informal third-party conception;
• Theoretical perspectives on, and methodological approaches to, informal third-party conception;
• Lived experiences of informal third-party conception from the perspective of recipients, donors, surrogates, their partners, or donor-conceived children;
• Self-insemination networks;
• Online communities of practice, including websites, apps and social media groups designed to connect the intended parent(s) with a donor, surrogate, or co-parent;
• Kinship and extended families within informal third-party conception and the lived experiences of donor siblings;
• Co-parenting and alternative family structures in informal third-party conception;
• The personal, cultural and social contributors to, and impacts of, informal third-party conception;
• Informal third-party conception and intersections with gender, race, class, sexuality, relationship status, religion, (dis)ability, age, income, and other social inequalities;
• The regulatory, bioethical and legal contexts and implications of informal third-party conception;
• Health, community and criminal justice responses to harms within informal third-party conception;
• ‘Fertility tourism’ within the context of informal third-party conception;
• Cross-national comparisons and longitudinal research into informal third-party conception;
• Community arrangements in indigenous communities (for example, sperm donation between community members);
• Complex or mixed conception journeys, entailing both formal and informal routes to identifying a donor, recipient or surrogate, or obtaining sperm from online sperm banks for home insemination;
• Healthcare professionals’, other professionals’ or community leaders’ experiences of supporting people who have engaged in informal third-party conception.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

Contemporary perspectives on informal third-party conception and reproduction