Ethics and Surrogate Motherhood - Essay Example

of the Concerned Paper #2 6 August 2008 Ethics and Surrogate Motherhood Ever since thetimes of the Greeks and the Romans, to the onset of the biblically inspired doctrines in the West, the course of free thinking and ethical evaluation has been vehemently opposed to any stark homogenization of values. Contention can sometimes turn out to be a positive attribute in the sense that the emergence of contentious issues in a social set up is often indicative of a vibrant and evolving society. The entire gamut of the Western Civilization has always been very complicated in the sense that there never existed a unanimously and universally authenticated code of conduct that was considered perpetually sufficient to adjudicate the socially and ethically relevant issues. Had the things been that simple, any type of intellectual debate would have become a mere travesty that would have predominantly remained confined to evaluating the emerging social and ethical issues by the established yardsticks. However, this was never to happen. Luckily, such a travesty of intellectual and ethical catechism is infact next to impossible in the contemporary technology driven society where the emergence of latest scientific discoveries and novel possibilities infact more then ever impinges upon the collective human consciousness to see and analyze the emerging issues in a multifaceted context. In such a mature and liberal social scenario, issues related to fertility, reproduction and surrogate motherhood assume special significance in an ethical, legal, theological and philosophical context that attract the attention and interest of thinkers and intellectuals from all the spheres of social life. In her work 'The Case against the Legalization of Contract Motherhood', Christine Overall defines surrogate motherhood as, "a reproductive practice in which a women agrees before becoming pregnant, to surrender the baby she gestates to a man who has commissioned the pregnancy, usually in return for a set fee (112)." As is evident to any thinking individual, the issue is doubtlessly open to a variety of conflicting opinions and is fraught with contention, so far as its ethical and legal ramifications are concerned. It not only invites a debate on the issue of the 'right to reproduce', but also implores whether the criminalization of commercial surrogacy contracts infringe upon the right to reproduce. A whole spectrum of opinions exists on the issue under consideration that vary from being outright endorsing or reprehensive to those somewhat being mild, liberal and situation based. The case of Mary Beth v/s William Stern litigated in the Supreme Court of New Jersey infact raised more issues that are relevant to the given topic then coming out with ample inalienable and irrefutable conclusions and guidelines. Many of the outspoken feminists hold that commercial surrogacy amounts to trivializing the whole concept of labor and motherhood. The very fact that such activities are coordinated and conducted by astute brokers makes the whole thing sound more of an industrial activity then the scared and sensitive experience of becoming a mother. This issue is fraught with grave possibilities, so far as the status of the women and the children in the society is concerned. It can not only thwart the society's onward march to achieving sexual equality, but has the potential to infringe upon the rights of the children. The problem is that most of the heard of opinions till now, pertaining to this issue were forwarded by theologians and conservatives. This temporarily obfuscated the logical and rational moorings of the whole issue and made it seem anti-science and recidivist. Still, there is no dearth of critics who are outright modern and contemporary in their perspective and who denounce the idea of contractual surrogacy on the more understandable grounds of human exploitation and the blatant commercialization of the ability to reproduce. There exists a school of opinion makers of the feminist origin who believe that contractual surrogacy amounts to trafficking in human babies. Detractors of this opinion argue that any money paid to a surrogate mother aught to be regarded in the nature of the compensation and a surrogate mother can in no way deemed to be selling her baby to a person who already happens to be that babies genetic father. Still the glaring fact remains that even if the sperm is provided for by a male involved in a contractual surrogacy, it does not in any way allocate the parental rights over that baby to that male. The vital fact that gets away with this weak cover up is that in most of the cases, a contractual surrogate mother is never given the right to retain the baby gestated by her and her fee for motherhood can get severely compromised in case the baby is still-born. This not only clearly means that the surrogate mothers are grossly underpaid for their services, but infact they are paid for the babies, which violates the laws against slavery. Even if the babies are taken care of in the future, this does not stop them from being legally classified as slaves as humane treatment of a slave does not exonerate him from a fate of slavery. This can also lead the parents to think of their children as being their priced possessions and may subject surrogate children to unrealistic pressures and expectations. In this context, Steinbock strongly puts forward the argument that commercial surrogacy is not akin to baby selling and reasserts the nature of the payments being made to surrogate mother as being compensatory and not remunerative. Proponents of surrogate motherhood often defend it on the grounds of the reproductive freedom of a citizen in a progressive society. Overall, immaculately refutes this argument by elaborating in detail on the right to reproduce and the right not to reproduce (217). She argues that any individual or the state can not coerce a person into reproducing and thus justifies free access to contraption and abortion. At the same time she establishes that the right to reproduce when taken in its extreme shades, which involves the unscrupulous exploitation of the available reproductive techniques and a blatant abuse of other people's bodies, in no way stands or can be justified to be the inalienable and undeniable right of an individual. Besides such surrogate contracts mostly tend to cater to the needs and aspirations of the "wealthy infertile" and ignore the reproductive rights and urges of a big section of the society. Such a notion of fertility is not only sexist and classist in its moorings and affiliations but also amounts to a validation of the traditional patriarchal gender expectations and a shameless propagation of the male reproductive hegemony. In this context, a recent report in the New York Times do deserves a special mention that alludes to the reproductive outsourcing by the infertile couples in the developed countries, courtesy the liberal laws, skilled medical professionals and poverty prevalent in the third world countries like India (Gentleman 1). Such couples take advantage of the fact that commercial surrogacy is legalized in India and this gives them the opportunity to exploit the reproductive system and well being of the Indian women at dirt cheap prices. The writer unravels the grossly commercial and exploitative nature of the whole affair by exposing, "the ease with which relatively rich foreigners are able to rent the wombs of poor Indians that creates the potential for exploitation (Gentleman 3)." On an average, an Indian surrogate mother gets a peltry sum of $7,500 for all the pain, inconvenience and botheration she has to go through. Still there is no dearth of well informed Western couples who dub the whole affair as "two people helping each other" rather then an unjust affair between two unequals. All this seemingly dirty business goes contrary to the long cherished Western ideals of reproductive freedom and non-exploitative employment. In addition, the concept of contractual surrogacy fails to take cognizance of the intimate bonds that may develop between a surrogate mother and the offspring gestated by her. Overall goes to the extent of declaring contractual surrogacy to be the new age eugenics in disguise. Not only a paid surrogacy livens the obsolete male notion of "genetic narcissism" by catering to the baseless and doubtable male urge to genetically propagate himself, but the infertile wife of such a person also gets a subaltern treatment in the whole affair, the legal contract being exclusively forged between the surrogate mother and the male counterpart. In addition, such a reproductive provision may promote racism and ableism by motivating, enabling and allowing the infertile couple to go for a surrogate mother with certain specific looks, race or ethnic background. Commercialized motherhood could have far reaching implications for the children born of such arrangements and the siblings of the children born to surrogate mothers. A child is often not mature enough to grasp the purely technological aspects of such a mode of reproduction, while keeping oneself emotionally detached and rational. Thus to a child born of a surrogate mother, the whole concept of surrogate motherhood may seem to be a purely bland and commercial affair that may make one doubt the validity and genuineness of one's parents love for oneself. In addition, the siblings of the children born to surrogate mothers may find it extremely difficult or even traumatic to deal with the bonds that they develop with their unborn siblings that they will have to eventually severe considering the fact that their siblings will be handed over to the complete strangers, once they are born. Thus a through consideration aught to be given to the implications of surrogate motherhood on the children involved. However, Steinbock dilutes the possible impact of such an outcome by mentioning that children do eventually manage to get over the problems associated with the traumatic events like divorce and remarriage. She regards the traumatic fallout of a surrogate birth to be akin to such events and consider the children of such mothers to be able to eventually able to get over such problems. Steinbock seems to favour a bit tolerant attitude to the idea of surrogate motherhood by declaring that, "the fact that a practice is risky, foolish or even morally distasteful is not sufficient reason to outlaw it." the writer seems to advocate a calibrated regulation of surrogate motherhood rather then banning it altogether. The fact is that infertility is a valid medical condition and surrogate motherhood is one of the possible or viable ways out. Though surrogate motherhood should be legally regulated to uphold the cherished ideals of a sane society, yet it should be legally allowed on a case to case basis. Rather then compiling homogeneous laws to deal with such a possibility, it would be much saner to allow for surrogate motherhood, depending upon the deservingness of the case under consideration. Works Cited Gentleman. Amelia. "India Nurtures Business of Surrogate Motherhood". The New York Times. 10 March 2008. 6 August 2008. Read More