This entry addresses self-insemination. It emphasizes lesbian couples who self-inseminate with donor sperm and examines how law and society recognize the relationship between the mothers, the baby, and the donor.

Self-insemination is a version of donor insemination (DI), a practice to which female same-sex couples who want to have a baby together often turn. This means that one of the women in the couple seeks to become pregnant by inseminating sperm (via a syringe) into the vagina. This sperm has been donated by a man who has agreed that the couple can use his sperm to have a child but who in most cases is not intending to have, and is not expected to have, any further role in the child’s life. The intended parents of ...