Surrogacy exploits women

The argument

Opponents of legal surrogacy argue that it is a form of prostitution: an arrangement in which a woman's body is contracted for another party's use, and in which the language of choice conceals the pressure that produced the choice. On their account, most women are forced into surrogacy by coercion or economic need rather than free preference, and the practice is by definition degrading to women, reducing them to merchandise to be bought and sold. Legalising it would not correct that but ratify it — reinforcing their oppression by male-dominated societies and presenting a clear affront to the concept of gender equality. A second objection concerns what gestation does to the woman carrying the pregnancy. Surrogate mothers cannot help being emotionally attached to the children they produce, due to the intimacy of the gestation process; the attachment forms whether or not the parties intended it to, which means the arrangement is built on a condition it cannot deliver. It is cruel, on this view, to then force these women to give up the children they have carried for nine months — and the cruelty is a feature of the arrangement rather than an incidental failure of it. The strongest form of the objection is made about arrangements that cross borders. The rights of a surrogate in international surrogacy arrangements are more likely to be exploited, especially due to lack of informed consent. Opponents argue that international paid surrogacy is exploitative because surrogates from economically disadvantaged countries cannot validly consent: their background circumstances are themselves coercive, so agreement given within them does not carry the weight consent is supposed to carry. And where agencies, particularly international surrogacy agencies, are used, they need to be very well regulated — or, like in any business, corrupt and exploitative practices follow. On these grounds surrogacy should be illegal.

Context

Commercial surrogacy has been banned in many nation states, on the grounds that it commodifies women. Some countries have special rules around transnational surrogacy where surrogate of a different nationality. Since commercial surrogacy was introduced in the late 1970s, there have been a number of publicised cases in which the system has been exploited or things have gone wrong with the surrogate mother. For instance, the “Baby M” case – in which the surrogate mother was made to give the baby to the parents despite changing her mind – and the Japanese billionaire who ordered 16 children from different Thai clinics. Surrogacy would be relatively easy to ban as gestational surrogacy is almost always in vitro fertilisation which must be licensed.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Surrogacy is just another job. There is no inherent reason, beyond moralistic ones, that women should not be able to sell use of their body for pregnancy. Studies have found most women who enter into surrogacy are completely happy with their decision which they have thoroughly thought through. There is no evidence of pressure and they were usually already mothers. The surrogates in these studies are white, married, Christian," and not especially poor. While they are glad to have the money, they are surrogates for other reasons. Many report that they enjoy being pregnant. They are proud of their accomplishment, and glad that they could make such a difference in the lives of otherwise childless couples.” Studies “conclud[ed] that money was rarely the sole and infrequently even the primary reason for entering the arrangement.” To avoid exploitation, legal parameters can be introduced, such as ensuring prospective surrogates are financially stable and only allowing surrogates who have previously had children so that they are aware of the gravity of the process. Commodification of the body, including surrogacy, need not be an emotionally traumatic experience. Research into sex work shows the Self must be split from the body to make it possible to “sell your body without selling yourself.” The body becomes sex. Sex becomes a service. The story of the sex worker says: the Split Self is not only possible, it is the ideal.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] There is no inherent reason surrogacy is exploitative.

Further reading

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.