Surrogacy
The danger of exploitation of women and children through surrogacy — in which a woman bears a child in order to give it away to be raised by others — has caused many to recoil call for its suppression. The famous "Baby M" case in the US, in which a woman who changed her mind after giving birth was pursued across the country by the irate commissioning couple, provided a sickening display of what has become of human relationships.
New reproductive technologies have given the debate over the practice an urgency not apparent in its low- or no-tech form: it is now possible for a woman to gestate an embryo to which she is not genetically related. As some feminist writers have warned, it is technically possible for a black Third World woman to bear the white child of First World parents.
On March 25, a joint meeting of health and social welfare ministers decided to outlaw all forms of surrogacy in this country.
State legislation will penalise those giving or receiving money for their involvement; those engaged in non-commercial or "altruistic" surrogacy will also be acting outside the law.
The ministers rejected the recommendations of the National Bioethics Committee, which held that surrogacy should be neither totally prohibited nor freely allowed. The committee recommended that the practice should be strictly controlled by uniform legislation which would render all surrogacy agreements unenforceable (ie, give the woman to right to change her mind and keep the baby), control all surrogacy agencies and control advertising.
Which approach is less oppressive to women? Or, to put it less negatively, is it possible that surrogacy could widen the choices available to some women? Does the fact of women's oppression render invalid any choices women make to engage in surrogacy?
As these questions are explored, real life charges ahead. Surrogacy is here, as it has been in one form or another since time immemorial, and it will continue whether outlawed or not. The potential for exploitation will be a reality as long as the wider society remains exploitative.
The immediate issue raised by the ministers' decision is this: if surrogacy is outlawed, women will be criminalised, just as other ways in which women use their bodies have been criminalised.
Like the other criminal activities of abortion and prostitution, surrogacy concerns women making decisions about how they will use their own bodies, for better or worse. In a society in which just about everything is commodified, some women will decide to sell their bodies for child-bearing.
To criminalise such women, to make moral judgments about them, is either to punish them for their poverty, or to make a very patronising assessment of their ability to make choices — albeit, in a world in which choice is not free, but conditional on unequal social circumstances. By Tracy Sorensen