There is an instinct in a woman to love most her own child — and an instinct to make any child who needs her love, her own.

The quotation contrasts two impulses: the natural attachment a mother feels toward her biological child and a broader, ethical capacity to extend that attachment to any vulnerable child. By pairing “instinct” with an expansive act of recognition—making “any child who needs her love, her own”—Brault frames caregiving as both innate and elective. The line dignifies adoptive and foster motherhood and, more generally, the way nurturing can create kinship where none exists by blood. Its significance lies in redefining “own” as a relationship built through responsibility and love rather than genetics alone.