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Should surrogacy be legal? Should surrogacy be legal?
Yes, surrogacy should be legal. Yes, surrogacy should be legal.
No. Surrogacy should be illegal. No. Surrogacy should be illegal.
It depends: surrogacy should be legal only under certain conditions. It depends: surrogacy should be legal only under certain conditions.
Surrogacy allows people unable to have children naturally to have them Surrogacy allows people unable to have children naturally to have them
Surrogacy is about a woman's bodily autonomy Surrogacy is about a woman's bodily autonomy
Surrogacy is a practical solution Surrogacy is a practical solution
Surrogacy is a natural way to have babies who are wanted Surrogacy is a natural way to have babies who are wanted
Surrogacy exploits women Surrogacy exploits women
Surrogacy is immoral Surrogacy is immoral
Prospective parents should adopt instead Prospective parents should adopt instead
Surrogacy has long-term negative impacts Surrogacy has long-term negative impacts
A child born to a surrogate is in an uncertain legal situation A child born to a surrogate is in an uncertain legal situation
Only altruistic surrogacy should be legal Only altruistic surrogacy should be legal
Debate Mini Map

Should surrogacy be legal?
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Yes, surrogacy should be legal.

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Surrogacy is about a woman's bodily autonomy

Women can utilise their bodies however they choose, including surrogacy.
Jennifer Damelio and Kelly Sorensen
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Context

The bodies of women have long been political battlegrounds subject to laws on what women can and cannot do with their bodies.

The Argument

Women should have full control of their bodies, and this includes being able to choose surrogacy. Women may become surrogates because of financial gain or due to the pleasure that comes from an altruistic act. The state should not act to remove this choice which comes from a paternalistic attitude that assumes women can’t make a decision themselves.

Counter arguments

Women should not be able to “sell their bodies” and to do so is immovably exploitative and wrong. An act that serves to exploit women is not a truly free choice - it is an act of exploitation that should not be allowed.

Proponents

Premises

[P1] Women should be allowed autonomy over what they do with their bodies. [P2] Women should be allowed to choose surrogacy, either altruistically or for financial gain.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Women who enter into surrogacy do not do so entirely out of free will. A woman cannot freely 'choose' something which is inherently exploitative.

Further Reading

Baker, B. (1996) A case for permitting altruistic surrogacy. Hypatia, 11(2), 34-48 Ekman Kajsa Ekis (2013) Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Sef, Spinifex: Melbourne. HumanRights Campaign. https://www.hrc.org/resources/overview-of-the-surrogacy-process Krawiec and Busby, K. & Vun, D. (2009) Revisiting The Handmaid's Tale: Feminist Theory Meets Empirical Research on Surrogate Mothers, 26 CAN. J. FAM. L. 13(44). Teman, E. (2010) Birthing a Mother: The surrogate body and the pregnant self. Los Angeles: University of California Press. van den Akker, O. (2017) Surrogate Motherhood Families.London:Palgrave MacMillan. Yehezkel Margalit, In Defense of Surrogacy Agreements: A Modern Contract Law Perceptive, 20 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 423 (2014), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmjowl/vol20/iss2/6

References

In the Wild

This page was last edited on Monday, 21 Sep 2020 at 12:51 UTC

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