Surrogate motherhood - Dissertation Example

?Surrogate motherhood Introduction Surrogate motherhood is a theme that evokes numerous opinions. There are many supporters of surrogate motherhood as well as many opponents. Neither of them is right or either of them is right in their own way. This research project is not focused on considerations of opponents or proponents. The literature review presented further on is focused on a current paradigm of surrogate motherhood. It is supposed that it is relevant to pay for surrogate motherhood to women who have already given birth to their own children. Physical and emotional load of surrogate motherhood is evident and it is not an easy labor. There should be no commercial spirit of surrogate motherhood, but it should be paid like any other kind of labor. Legal aspect of surrogate motherhood A common surrogate motherhood criticism is determined by the claim that it is impossible to buy or to sell a child. A child is not a commodity and money relationship is irrelevant from this perspective. In the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law it is concluded that “the exchange of money for possession or control of children.., threatens to erode the way that society thinks about and values children, and by extension all human life” (Mclachlan&Swales, 2009). Thus, from this perspective, a child’s birth is the natural outcome of a certain deal and it can be transferred from one party to another for money. A supposition that children in this case are treated like commodities can be contradicted by the fact that sometimes parts of a human body are treated like objects (Meehan, 2000). It can be argued that commodities require cleaning, cherishing etc, so it is not wrong in this context to treat children as commodities or objects. Thus, it is relevant to consider in this context people who pay money to buy a child from a surrogate mother. A good treatment is usually guaranteed to a child who is bought. From another perspective, such kind of an immoral treatment is irrelevant, because children are not commodities from the very beginning. Babies are given by God and it is not proper to sell or too buy them. With this respect one may argue that for example, when an individual wants to meet his spouse he pays for a matrimonial agency. But in this case a future spouse is not bought; it is just a money transfer to a matrimonial agency. Thus, it can be said that not a child is bought, but services of a surrogate mother are bought. Moreover, the services of a commercial surrogacy agency are bought. At this point it is relevant to talk about surrogacy arrangement. It is a cruel reality of the modern world that parents want to become legal parents and receive custody rights and for this purpose they have to pay a certain sum of money. A surrogate mother wants to get money for her services of bearing a child since it is a hard work to bear a child. An interesting suggestion is provided by…: “In a commercial surrogacy agreement, the commissioning couple could be thought of as buying particular services from the surrogate mother. But it is not necessary to suppose that anything at all is bought or sold” (Mitchell, Pellegrino, Elshtain, Kilner & Rae, 2006). In this case obligations of one party imply that it gives money to another party in case obligations are fulfilled. This is a pragmatic paradigm that is often discussed in the contemporary researches and studies in this field. Therefore, we can surely claim that no illegal basis lies in terms of these contracts. There is a well-known paradigm suggested by Blyth and Potter, who claim that surrogacy does not imply buying or selling children, because future parents “might even imagine that they have purchased a particular baby.., what they have paid for is not necessarily the same as what they think they have paid for” (Mclachlan&Swales, 2009). This is an interesting claim and it is worth considering. There is such kind of cases, when future parents rejected to take the baby from a surrogate mother when it has already come into the world. Therefore, a legal basis of surrogacy agreements is often questioned and a lot of questions remain unsolved: “The surrogate mother's agreement to refrain from pursuing custody claims is one condition of the agreement that she be paid for carrying the child. That she surrenders the child is another condition” (Mclachlan&Swales, 2009). It may sound rather weird, but this situation looks like a usual contract agreement fulfillment: in case she fulfills A and avoids fulfilling B, payment would hardly occur. Nevertheless, besides commercial surrogate motherhood, there is altruistic surrogate motherhood. With this respect, an issue about the “best child’s interests” is evoked. A legal basis of surrogate motherhood is often discussed in order to provide this kind of services with a legal basis and protect interests of all parties involved and the society in the whole. Social and ethical aspect of surrogate motherhood The main scope of works devoted to the surrogate motherhood concerns commercializing aspect. From this perspective donors and surrogates get paid for their services. It is often claimed that “commercializing reproduction is said to exploit and depersonalize women, turning them into mere cogs in the machinery of reproduction” (Restivo, 2005). Moreover, children are considered as commodities that are purchased via payments. If to consider surrogate motherhood in the context of commercial reproduction, surrogate mothers’ payments evoke more controversial opinions than, for example, payments to egg or gamete donors. In England and Australia gamete donation is made only on a voluntarily basis, but in the United States it is a usual practice to pay for sperm donors (current fee is $1,500 to $2,000) (Teman, 2010). The issue is much more complicated when it concerns surrogate mothers. In some states it is forbidden to pay for surrogacy. In some states it is a general practice to forbid baby selling or consider it illegal. Some states do not have certain regulations concerning surrogacy (Dooley, McCarthy, Garanis-Papadatos & Dalla-Vorgia, 2003). Nevertheless, “it seems unfair not to pay surrogates for their very substantial efforts, while egg and sperm donors and the doctors and lawyers arranging surrogate services are well paid. If a ban on payment significantly reduced access to surrogacy, it would infringe the infertile couple's procreative liberty, for it would prevent them from obtaining the collaborative services they need to rear biologically related offspring” (Robertson 1994, p. 141). This statement evokes moral and ethical considerations about infringement of human reproduction. Infertile couples would not have a chance to have their offspring in case surrogacy motherhood is considered to be illegal or will be forbidden. Of course, it is often claimed that women do not have to sell their gestation capacity to get some money. Nevertheless surrogacy should not be considered as demeaning effects of commercial motherhood. A surrogate mother should be considered as a paid collaborator helping couples to have and rear their biological offspring. In accordance with Professor Margaret Radin, commercial relation in the surrogacy equals to commercializing of sexuality, skills, intellectuality, attractiveness etc (Robertson, 1994). Feminist perspective on surrogate motherhood Moreover, in the feminist paradigm it is often underlined that surrogacy influences negatively on women. Still, the aspects of paid surrogacy are more deontological than consequentialist. The issue of payment is usually questioned by the fact that it is unnatural to pay a woman for gestation (Pyton, 2001). The general judgment of opponents of surrogacy concerns the fact that it is just wrong to pay women to gestate or to buy a child. We can surely claim that such kind of opinion should be reconsidered with respect to such kind of facts as an ability of infertile couples to reproduce their biological children. According to Haynes and Miller (2003), “The so-called Baby M case is perhaps the best-known case involving “surrogate motherhood”, although the use of the term in this case is, arguably, misleading. Mary Beth Whitehead agreed to be inseminated with the sperm of William Stern and to give up any resulting child to him and his wife for $10,000. After giving birth to a child and turning that child over to the Sterns, Whitehead became distraught. A conflict ensued over parental rights, and a New Jersey court initially gave full custody to the Sterns and discounted the fact that Whitehead was the child's genetic and gestational mother”(Haynes and Miller, 2003). In feminist paradigm not children but women sell their services. Feminists support their idea by the fact that sperm donors get paid for their sperm donation and thus women should be paid for their services to give birth to a child. Still, there are researches and studies that differ between payment for gestation services labor and other kinds of labor. In accordance with Haynes and Miller (2003) when a woman bears a child it is more closely connected with her intimate world and her identity. From this perspective it is irrelevant to compare sperm donation and gestation services. Emotional and psychological aspect of surrogacy motherhood is discussed by Aigen (1996) who claims that a woman alienates herself from a child. Moreover, financial conditions of surrogate mothers are less stable than financial conditions of future parents who pay money to get a child. Vulnerability of children is also an important factor. An emotional bound between a child and a woman is undeniable and once a child is taken away from a surrogate mother is a stressful factor. The same happens with surrogate mothers. There is no exact limit between reproductive labor and emotional conditions of a woman. This issue is often considered in the context of gender inequality in the society. Feminists claim that commercial surrogacy intensifies male’s control over women: surrogate mothers are told what to eat, to drink etc. Moreover, women are perceived as baby-machines. There is a well-known case when African American woman gave birth to her child with genes from a white father and a Philippina mother and she did not have an opportunity even to visit a child (Haynes & Miller, 2003). A social position of a surrogate woman is usually associated with discrimination, emotional or financial hardships etc. Nevertheless, there are such women who consider surrogacy as a certain life experience and a chance to alter their emotional state and reaching goals or images of themselves. It is also relevant to consider surrogacy in a wider context, because “surrogacy involves an act of giving that is personally meaningful to the surrogate, and because what is being given is of unique value, being a surrogate mother has the potential to be a "mutative" event, an experience capable of altering and transforming identity, self-image, and existing psychic structure” (Aigen, 1996). This claim is relevant even nowadays, because these are the main points covered in the majority of researches and studies in this field. Conclusion Still, there is a lack of researchers about direct influence of surrogacy on surrogate mothers. Surrogate motherhood is usually considered in a social or legal paradigm, but individual aspects of women as future mothers is often neglected. Moreover, it should be noted that commercial surrogacy should be considered as a type of reproductive technologies. It deserves considering next to egg/gamete donation and adoption. It is a means of human reproduction thus it should be properly regulated on the social and governmental levels. Thus, it is relevant to consider payment for surrogacy as a payment for giving birth to new citizens. Works cited 1. Aigen, B. Motivations of Surrogate Mothers. Available at: 2. Dooley, D., McCarthy, J., Garanis-Papadatos, T., & Dalla-Vorgia, P. (2003). Ethics of New Reproductive Technologies: Cases and Questions. New York: Berghahn Books. 3. Haynes, J. & Miller, J. (Eds.). (2003). Inconceivable Conceptions: Psychological Aspects of Infertility and Reproductive Technology. Hove, England: Brunner-Routledge. 4. Maclachlan, J. and Swales, K. (2009). Commercial Surrogate Motherhood and the Alleged Commodification of Children: A Defense of Legally Enforceable Contracts. Law and Contemporary Problems, 72 (3), p. 91+. 5. Meehan, M. (2000, Fall). What's Wrong with the Science Establishment?. Human Life Review, 26, 63+. 6. Mitchell, C. B., Pellegrino, E. D., Elshtain, J. B., Kilner, J. F., & Rae, S. B. (2006). Biotechnology and the Human Good. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 7. Pyton, E. (2001, September). Is Surrogate Motherhood Moral?. The Humanist, 61, 20. 8. Restivo, S. (Ed.). (2005). Science, Technology, and Society: An Encyclopedia. New York: Oxford University Press. 9. Robertson, J. A. (1994). Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 10. Teman, Elly (2010). Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self. Berkeley: University of California Press. Read More