Surrogate Mothering and Contract Pregnancies
What is surrogacy? It is a process that involves a woman who is inseminated with a sperm, or possibly implanted with both an egg and sperm, of an individual or couple who has contracted her services. Her task is to carry the baby to term and upon delivery, she relinquishes all claim to the baby in exchange for a monetary compensation. This involves contracts and the requesting individual or couple usually provides allowances and health coverage for the surrogate mother during the period of gestation.
Selling Babies and Bodies
A controversial question that surrogacy raises is: “Are we selling babies?” Proponents would argue that we do not treat children as property, so how can we possibly sell what we do not own? Surrogate mothers are merely vessels who, by offering their services, shoulder the risk of childbearing and therefore deserve monetary compensation for this risk they take. By accepting this monetary compensation, surrogate mothers, by contract, relinquish any bond they have with the delivered offspring. Ergo, surrogacy is a purely commercial trade of putting reproductive services up for sale. So goes the argument that if men are allowed to sell sperm, then why can’t women sell the services of their wombs? But then again, the debate is circular. Do we really own our sperm and ova? In the form of germ cells, we may think we preside over their ownership ultimately, we do not own the persons that they become.
Why, too, is it that modern society always seems to treat children as commodities? Most couples only experience satisfaction with children who are genetically related to them. Kids frequently become mere instruments in fulfilling parental wishes. Aside from this, surrogacy has disturbing analogs with prostitution. The former involves paid the conception of a child without physical consummation while the latter calls for paid physical consummation without the conception of a child. In both cases, the woman sells some kind of bodily service in exchange for a fee. Why is it that most people condemn prostitution but uphold the legitimacy of surrogacy?
Many argue that prostitution and surrogacy can be differentiated by the nobility of intentions in either case. Prostitution is usually sought after by pleasure-seekers without any other goal in mind. Surrogacy, on the other hand, is marketed as a viable alternative for infertility treatments and nontraditional couples. Infertile or gay couples can now turn to surrogacy to start a family. They, too, after all, have a right to want children, just like any other normal couple.
Is surrogacy harmful to the children it conceives? Will the child feel like he/she is a mere commodity that was borne out of a rented womb when he/she takes knowledge of the surrogacy? But if the surrogacy had not taken place, then the child might never have been brought into the world. Another problem entails the natural children of women who offer their services for surrogacy. This can instill in them the fear that their mothers will give them away, too.
A Booming Commercial Trade
Capitalism taps deep into creative wells for novel money-making schemes. Today, women can even sell their wombs for a price-not literally, of course. Many agencies such as Surrogate Mothers Inc. arrange matches between egg and sperm donors and volunteer surrogates-usually college students and poor women-who get a median payment of up to US $20,000 for their services. Before the pregnancy is carried out, the surrogate agrees to sign a contract that terminates her parental bond to any offspring in exchange for the generous monetary compensation. Even in China, the Ministry of Health is alarmed at the are a growing number of websites advertising surrogate pregnancy services contracted by organizations and individuals, mostly college students, that charge up to US $12,200.
Some feminists and proponents of surrogacy market this phenomenon as a novel way that disadvantaged women can make a decent living. On top of that, becoming a surrogate mother is a voluntary decision, a choice that the woman makes given her freedom over her body. To well-off working class women, risking pregnancy with someone else’s baby may be a severe case of exploitation, but given the menial pay, hazardous exposure and ghastly working conditions implicated in most available jobs for the disadvantaged lot, surrogacy becomes an attractive, lucrative livelihood option. Indeed, surrogate motherhood can possibly be a liberating experience that affords women an exercise of freedom and control over their reproductive abilities. Carmel Shalev once argued that preventing women from entering contract pregnancies is paternalistic and deprives women of their freedom of choice.
Does surrogacy, on the other hand, create room for financial exploitation, as wombs are put up for hire? Thus, an opportunity to control the bodies of women in exchange for a considerable sum is presented. In surrogacy, we find that the woman, albeit voluntarily, is treated as a means to achieving a desired end, not yet even factoring in the risk involved in childbearing. This goes against the very dignity of the person, as the situation allows her to be treated as an instrument, a commodity, that serves a particular function. Moreover, surrogacy can also endanger a good part of a woman’s dignity by risking her reduction to a mere “baby breeder”, with her womb acting as a purchased commodity to house someone else’s fetus. Of this, Elizabeth Kane, the first commercial surrogate mother in the United States, writes: “A woman feels like a flesh covered test tube during the entire experience. As the foetus (sic) grows, the woman is depersonalized (sic), she becomes fragmented from the whole person-merely a vehicle for breeding babies!” Does surrogacy violate the basic bond between mother and child?
Severing Special Bonds?
One strong objection to surrogacy is the argument that differentiates gestational labor from other types of labor. Gestating a baby enables the formation of a special, parental bond between mother and fetus, one that the surrogate mother agrees to relinquish in exchange for monetary compensation. Of this, Debra Satz writes:
“Margaret Jane Radin (1988) and Carole Pateman (1983) stress the ways that the labor of bearing a child is more intimately bound up with a woman’s identity than other types of labor. Contract pregnancy involves an alienation of aspects of the self so extreme as to make it an illegitimate practice. Selling sperm is not analogous: the work of pregnancy is long-term, complex and involves an emotional and physical bonding between mother and fetusâÂ?¦Elizabeth Anderson (1990) echoes this objection, but adds that surrogacy contracts also alienate a woman from her love for the child and frequently involve exploitation, as surrogate sellers have less wealth and are more emotionally vulnerable than buyers. Other objections stress the weakening of the link between parent and child, and the special vulnerability of children.”
On the part of the hiring couple, employing a surrogate to bear their child deprives them of the exclusive bond that parents have with their children. Whether this is morally wrong or acceptable is in the discretion of the beholder. Undeniably, though, there is a special attachment that comes of childbearing and surrogacy entails new viewpoints in looking at motherhood.
In the last few decades, there have been a great many lawsuits filed over child custody between surrogate mothers and the requesting (biological) parents. Most involve distraught surrogates who felt intense moral unease in relinquishing maternal ties with the child, refusing to give them away and fulfill their part of the agreed contract. The most famous case involved surrogate Mary Beth Whitehead, who was voluntarily implanted with sperm from William Stern. For US $10,000, Mary agreed to turn over any delivered offspring at the end of the pregnancy, but became distraught after doing so. A legal battle ensued, with the Sterns being awarded custody over Baby M. Mary, however, appealed the decision, and with her claim that she had equal genetic input apart from her gestation of the baby, the previous decision was overturned. The Sterns still had custody of Baby M but Mary was granted visitation rights.
One of the most recent cases involved Danielle Bimber of Corry, Pennsylvania. Through an agency, she was contracted for US $24,000 to carry to term the baby of James Flynn. The ova itself was not Bimber’s, but from a separate egg donor unrelated to Flynn, a Jennifer Michelle Rice from Arlington, Texas. After the triplet baby boys were delivered, they remained unclaimed from the hospital for five straight days. Bimber then laid claim to the boys. A legal battle ensued and in a rare move, she was awarded custody. Later on, both Flynn, the genetic father, and Rice, the genetic mother, would both challenge the judge’s decision and lay claim to the kids. As of March 2006, Bimber still has custody of the boys but was ordered to pay US $20,000 in damages to Flynn. Their legal battle ensues.
As more and more people become legal-savvy, a messy web of court litigations and entanglements is threatening. Egg and sperm sellers might be tracked down and demanded for child support, while buyers of eggs and sperms confront the risk of a custody battle over the child.
Risky Business
Another important facet of surrogacy is the undeniable slate of health concerns it raises, both for the surrogate and the resulting offspring. In becoming a surrogate, one voluntarily subjects oneself to the risk involved in chlildbearing, which is compensated for my monetary means. This argument, however, loses credibility when one considers that every woman who chooses to conceive and bear a child by natural means also subjects herself to such risk. The issue reverts back to the potentially degrading and dehumanizing effect of reducing women to mere commodities that can be bought and controlled for a price.
A benefit of surrogacy is that otherwise risky pregnancies (i.e. the mother has ovarian/uterine cancer, a heart condition, at a critical age) could be carried out through a surrogate instead, increasing the chances of delivering healthy offspring. While many people are concerned about the moral implications of surrogacy, few realize it as a venue for reducing the number of otherwise preventable cases of handicapped children. There is also a transfer of risk from a woman who is less fit or is averse to pregnancy, to a woman who is more able and accommodating to it, which is a beneficial barter. A drawback to this is, as with in vitro fertilization procedures, there are increased chances of multiple births, which poses a risk to both the surrogate mother and the offspring. Surrogacy, as with any natural pregnancy, by no means assures the delivery of healthy, viable babies. Monetary compensation merely accounts for the risks that the surrogate mother’s pregnancy will afford her and does not assure a successful gestation.
Surrogacy Is Exploitation
Setting a price in exchange for surrogacy services necessarily translates surrogacy into a commercial trade that commodifies both women and children. Women are treated as instrumental means for achieving an end, no matter how legitimate or noble that goal may be. This tramples on the dignity of women and transforms them into mere objects that be bought for a price. This also opens many avenues for abuse and control over women.
Surrogacy also exploits women by exposing them to undue risk, no matter that it is voluntary. It is akin to prostitution in that it allows others to take advantage of a woman’s body if the right price is met. This aside, it is a mockery to motherhood, and it tramples on the undeniably unique bond that is inherent between a gestating mother and her child. For this reason, many surrogate mothers become emotionally distraught when the time comes to give away her newborn. As with any other mammal, human beings are not, by nature, prone to giving away offspring.
More importantly, surrogacy exemplifies the human being’s unquenchable thirst for power and control. We seek to control nature, to torture her secrets from her. Anyone who has the right amount of money can learn these secrets and use them to one’s advantage. Money can buy you anything, even a child. If so, we should be trembling in contempt, questioning our self-value. Just how much is a person worth?
