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Is Surrogacy Abusive to Women?
As someone who considers herself a reasonably committed pro-lifer (exceptions only for rape, incest, life of the mother), it was an unsettling — but useful — experience for me to find myself on the opposite side of a “reproductive health” issue from those who are usually my allies.
The June 28 edition of National Review Online featured an interview conducted by Kathryn Jean Lopez with Kathleen Sloan, a member of the National Organization for Women’s national board. Titled “Wombs for Rent: A war on women that Left and Right can end together,” it celebrated the potential political alliance between liberal and conservative women in opposition to “third-party reproduction.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez (whose devout, principled Catholicism I have long admired) presumably opposes third-party reproduction based on long-standing Church teaching, rooted in respect for the miracle and sanctity of human life. The interviewee, Kathleen Sloan, seems to oppose surrogacy based primarily on her belief that “[f]or millienia, across the globe, women have been sexually commodified in a patriarchal world; developments in biotechnology now allow for the reproductive commodification of women and their bodies.”
As an (orthodox!) Episcopalian, I am pro-life because I believe that each life is unique, irreplaceable and created by God. Certainly, assisted reproductive technology can always be misused — cloning, in my view, is wrong because it undermines the uniqueness of each life, for example — but that potential, alone, is insufficient to convince me that it ought to be banned. Perhaps there is something I’m missing (and I welcome the chance to be educated!), but it isn’t intuitively obvious to me that using medical advances to create life is morally objectionable in the way that using it to destroy life would be — especially if, as pro-lifers believe, no life is a “mistake.”
My discomfort with the right-left anti-surrogacy alliance isn’t just theoretical. As a matter of pro-life strategy, does it really make sense for committed pro-lifers (especially those who oppose virtually all abortion) to join arms with feminists like Sloan, who refers to surrogates as “women who sell their reproductive labor”? If pregnancy itself can be properly understood as “reproductive labor,” requiring women, by law, to carry pregnancies to term becomes tantamount to forced “reproductive labor,” i.e., slavery. And if — as those opposed to abortion exceptions believe — it is morally permissible to require rape victims to carry their pregnancies to term, why is it morally wrong to pay a willing military wife tens of thousands of dollars voluntarily to carry a child?
Finally, as a matter of overall political strategy, I have long wondered why committed, principled pro-lifers go out of their way to weigh in on “subsidiary” reproductive rights controversies like egg donation, surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization. With so many people still unconvinced, on libertarian grounds, about restrictions on actual abortions, wouldn’t it make more sense to emphasize areas of general agreement — like opposition to partial birth abortion, late term abortion, sex-selection abortions and the like?
Condemnation of assisted reproductive treatment (ART), used by married couples to have children, simply distances from the pro-life movement many women who would otherwise be sympathetic. It projects an image (for the most part, inaccurately) of pro-lifers as rigid and out-of-touch with the realities of many women’s lives. And it divides those who otherwise consider themselves pro-lifers, rather than adding to our ranks.
With the full understanding that few pro-lifers set out deliberately to alienate and hurt those who disagree with them, it was a valuable shift in perspective for me to stand on political ground I don’t usually occupy. Just about every woman I know who has availed herself of ART is sensitive about the subject; struggling to conceive and/or bear a child cuts to the very heart of our identities as women. That is a fact worth bearing in mind, along with the actual experiences of those who have been part of surrogacy agreements.
Indeed, a dear friend (and yes, it is a friend; I was blessed to be able to bear healthy twins at the ripe old age of 40!) and her husband were parties to a surrogacy agreement because of a medical condition that had always rendered her medically incapable of carrying their child. No one was “exploited” or “commodified” in any way — and having watched the child who resulted grow up, it is absolutely impossible for me to believe that any part of that decision was a mistake.
Published in General
Some criticize surrogacy as “commodifying” the child or the mothering process. That a charge leveled by socialists who don’t approve of profiting on the sale of necessities.
·11 hours ago
Well put.
How is this for how we are different at the core:
Pro:
I think that sums it up..
Fascinating how little the *child* is considered in these arguments. The #1 thing I wish people would think about when considering ART is how this is not about personal fulfillment and how the child produced as a function of ART is highly inclined to have negative understandings of kinship — far beyond what we already know about the importance of handling these stories for adopted children …
If you’ve ever spoken to a product of ART, it is not uncommon to hear of very negative feelings.
I’m not saying anything about what should or shouldn’t be done, just how disappointing it is to hear adults not think about the child while talking about the child.
I don’t understand the antipathy to surrogacy expressed in this debate. It seems obvious that:
Some criticize surrogacy as “commodifying” the child or the mothering process. That a charge leveled by socialists who don’t approve of profiting on the sale of necessities.
Is it wrong to commodify health care by allowing doctors to sell their services, or to commodify religious observances by asking for donations, or to charge a market clearing price for necessities during a crisis? No, no, and no. Same for surrogacy. It’s not wrong.
I probably shouldn’t jump in here (and obviously the comment quoted is sarcastic), but when you apologize and in the same breath talk about extenuating circumstances, the apology rings hollow. If you’re really sorry, simply apologize, don’t try to drum up sympathy for yourself. In my opinion, apologies shouldn’t contain excuses.
Mollie,
It seems to me, from the point of view of the human being, existence is better than non-existence. I mean, the child will know who mommy and daddy are, they grow up with them.
I think selling eggs or sperm is much more problematic that surrogacy in that regard.
Even then. I just don’t have a lot of horror at using surrogacy to bring a wanted child into a loving family.
I’d like to say for the record, we had trouble conceiving our first child. We were not going to do anything fancy, and look at adoption when God blessed us. None of this would have been for us. Be we would not dictate that for others.
It seems to me, from the point of view of the human being, existence is better than non-existence. I mean, the child will know who mommy and daddy are, they grow up with them.
I think selling eggs or sperm is much more problematic that surrogacy in that regard.
Even then. I just don’t have a lot of horror at using surrogacy to bring a wanted child into a loving family.
I’d like to say for the record, we had trouble conceiving our first child. We were not going to do anything fancy, and look at adoption when God blessed us. None of this would have been for us. Be we would not dictate that for others.
Sure. And children conceived in rape would rather be alive than not alive. But it doesn’t actually speak to whether the manner of conception is ethical or not.
To be honest, I, too find the sperm selling/egg selling the more problematic part of ART.
But either way I think it’s important that we look at this less from a “what may I as an adult do to fulfill my needs” angle.
Well, you misconstrued the anti-side, caricaturing the arguments by ignoring the principles involved.
So let’s discuss a couple principles involved.
So maybe we should look at this from another angle, and go to the extreme (and yes, it is deliberately an extreme) just to reveal a principle. How would you respond to this statement?
“There’s nothing wrong with manufacturing a baby.”
Yes, it’s a loaded term. But what’s the argument against it?
So maybe we should look at this from another angle, and go to the extreme (and yes, it is deliberately an extreme) just to reveal a principle. How would you respond to this statement?
“There’s nothing wrong withmanufacturinga baby.”
Yes, it’s a loaded term. But what’s the argument against it? ·2 minutes ago
This really boils down to whether one sees making a baby a holy act or not. I don’t.
I have no problem with the use of cloning for purposes of reproduction.
To continue. (I hope 2.0 does not have absurd word limit)
Manufacturing a baby is what couples do all the time. You can call it anything, but when a couple wants to have a child, they set about making one. Some us ART to do it.
The real issue is not how the baby is made, but to what purpose. I am against making a person to use for parts or experiments. I am against making a person and throwing the life away because it is inconvenient.
But I am for making a baby so that he or she can be a child to loving parents.
So my ethics are end based, not process based.
Manufacturing a baby is what couples do all the time. You can call it anything, but when a couple wants to have a child, they set about making one. Some us ART to do it.
But no. Procreation is quite different from manufacturing. My husband and I have conjugal sex. This conjugal sex gives us unity and union and enjoyment and intimacy and, as God allows, children in my womb. Viewing even the conjugal act as manufacturing is quite different from viewing children as a blessing. And separating marital union from the procreation of children has quite a few effects.
I feel the birth mother is the child’s mother.
I have already said there is a sense in which the birth mother always remains the mother, that cannot be contracted away. In an adoptive situation, or surrogacy, all parties try to ignore and minimize that because they believe it to be for the best.
Why is that the issue?
I’m not at all comfortable with the idea that the baby’s purpose is “so that he or she can be a child to loving parents.” Not even sure what it means. Does that mean that a child’s purpose is to give joy to the parents? That makes the child, again, a means to an end … which I don’t accept.
So, I think we’ll find the core of our disagreement (a friendly one, I presume) in that basic question of why we’re having the baby in the first place.
And just as the motives behind wanting a baby can be wrong (as you mentioned, say, for replacement parts, etc.) why can’t the means be wrong as well?
I feel the birth mother is the child’s mother.
I have already said there is a sense in which the birth mother always remains the mother, that cannot be contracted away. In an adoptive situation, or surrogacy, all parties try to ignore and minimize that because they believe it to be for the best. ·15 minutes ago
In the adoptive family training we just went through, we were encouraged neither to inflate nor minimize — and certainly not ignore — the importance of a birth family. Just to be straightforward about a birth family’s decision to make an adoption plan for their baby and how that adoption plan incorporated our family into the story…
We all know we wouldn’t exist if our birth mother hadn’t given birth to us. Minimizing and ignoring can lead to confusion and weird feelings — even if our stories are complicated.
The real issue is not how the baby is made, but to what purpose. I am against making a person to use for parts or experiments. I am against making a person and throwing the life away because it is inconvenient.
But I am for making a baby so that he or she can be a child to loving parents.
So my ethics are end based, not process based. ·21 minutes ago
There is , I hear, quite a demand for newborns. If there’s nothing wrong with renting your womb, there could similarly be nothing wrong with a couple making a baby to sell. After all, a wanted child would be created. Are the pro-surrogacy folks okay with this? Free market, consenting adults and all that? I don’t see why not.
Or how about selling your two year old or teenager to some better parents they know and like,who would be eager to take the little darlings when you’ve kind of had it with them? Or when you are just really hard up for cash? Would that be okay? I don’t see why not.
I suppose there is a sense in which the “birth mother” is the child’s mother, but in a more important sense she is not. It is not her biological child, and everyone knows it and feels it. Her connection to the child is ephemeral. She is unlikely to care much about what happens to the child in the future.
The child is not being sold. It was never the “birth mother’s” to sell. Before the child was conceived, she had already agreed that she had no rights to it. Moreover, the state should not recognize such rights for the surrogate.
The error made by surrogacy opponents is to overestimate the connection a surrogate has to the child she carried, but to whom she is not related. ·2 hours ago
This seems quite callous. I wonder how you know how surrogates feel. And, again, rights may be contracted away, but the birth mother will remain the birth mother.
Jojo:
I never suggested selling people. That is putting words into my mouth. I am not for selling people. Foreign adoption agencies sure are though, except mom never gets any money, only the State.
KC:
The reasons people use surrogacy are the same as a couple doing it the normal way. Part of the purpose of a childis to give joy to parents. Why else do they do it.
I just don’t see how the process is that big a deal if no one is hurt. Sure a process can be wrong. I don’t think this one is.
Mollie:
I have suggested no minimizing. I agree one should be up front with the children and let them know. Nothing in your adoption training sounds off to me.
All
It still comes down to thinking the process is a holy one. I don’t see it as such. I don’t see deciding to have a child, or getting pregnant accidentally, or not being able to get pregnant as God driven activities. I think the whole “Contraception is against the Will of God” to be wrong. Maybe that is a deeper point of difference.
If there were artificial wombs, that were safer than being in women, would any of you be OK with that?
I am trying to tease out the “Carry a child for 9 months” from the “It should be natural” side.
You know we get DNA from our birth mother, above and beyond her egg? Bits of mom, and even grandmom can end up in us. With surrogacy, you really do have two women as mom.
But I still don’t have a problem with it.
I never suggested selling people. That is putting words into my mouth. I am not for selling people.
I know you didn’t suggest it. I was just saying that as far as I can see, the arguments for surrogacy apply equally to making babies to sell, which could then even be stretched to existing children.
I never suggested selling people. That is putting words into my mouth. I am not for selling people.
I know you didn’t suggest it. I was just saying that as far as I can see, the arguments for surrogacy apply equally to making babies to sell, which could then even be stretched to existing children. ·0 minutes ago
I guess I disagree. Frankly, to me. the process of adoption seems much closer to selling babies than surrogacy. People pay money to adopt kids, and quite a lot of it. I cannot believe that China or Russia are not lining the pockets of someone with the fees.
“….Even those who oppose surrogate motherhood usually describe it as a kind of Frankenstein’s monster, a moral horror brought on by science out of control.But the only new thing about surrogate motherhood is our willingness to tolerate it. Its sudden emergence in the latter half of the twentieth century is not evidence of a technological revolution, but of a social, sexual, and intellectual one. The term surrogate motherhood was originally coined to describe a somewhat complicated medical procedure in which a woman’s egg is extracted, mingled with her husband’s sperm, and implanted in a biologically-unrelated host mother who carries the baby to term. But almost all surrogate mothers today are really surrogate wives–women who agree to conceive a child with a man through artificial insemination, and then hand it over to him.The first recorded case of artificial insemination took place in 1790. The procedure is so simple women can…..” (continued next comment)
easily preform it themselves. All you need is a mechanical device to suck up and then expel liquid. One woman I spoke with used a syringe without the needle. A turkey baster will also do.”
I never suggested selling people. That is putting words into my mouth. I am not for selling people.
I know you didn’t suggest it. I was just saying that as far as I can see, the arguments for surrogacy apply equally to making babies to sell, which could then even be stretched to existing children. ·0 minutes ago
I guess I disagree. Frankly, to me. the process of adoption seems much closer to selling babies than surrogacy. People pay money to adopt kids, and quite a lot of it. I cannot believe that China or Russia are not lining the pockets of someone with the fees. ·3 hours ago
Indeed. Corruption in adoption — taking advantage of birth parents and/or adoptive families — is a problem. But it’s one thing for “someone” to profit and entirely another for the profiting to be done by birth parents or what not. That’s harder to explain to a child. Again, let’s think about the children at least a little.
Coming back the point of the thread, no one on the Anti side has approached my question:
If the child-to-be could be placed into an artificial womb that was as safe or safer than a real woman, would that be morally OK, or would you still have a problem with it?
Women having children to sell them does not trouble me as much as women conceiving children only to kill them in utero, or keeping them when they are not really interested or capable of raising them.
If the market price of a healthy newborn is high, that means that there are many potential parents bidding for too few babies. If the price is low, then there will be no incentive for women to have the baby just to sell it.
If the child-to-be could be placed into an artificial womb that was as safe or safer than a real woman, would that be morally OK, or would you still have a problem with it? ·3 minutes ago
Personally, I would be okay with it, but that’s because it would completely gut the few sympathetic justifications for abortion. Don’t want to be an incubator for your rapist’s baby? Don’t have room for triplets in that tiny frame? Well, with an artificial womb you can just change the baby’s address.
Now what’s your justification for killing the baby?
If the child-to-be could be placed into an artificial womb that was as safe or safer than a real woman, would that be morally OK, or would you still have a problem with it? ·19 minutes ago
My first reaction would be skepticism. The investment a mother has put into the baby through pregnancy and labor is what makes that baby infinitely precious to her and ready to die for it, from the moment it is born. I figure that is a God-given clever arrangement, or an evolutionary advantage if you prefer.
However who would bother with pregnancy and birth if artificial wombs were available? Probably not me! Unfortunately the societal consequences would be hard to foresee, and probably horrible, accelerating the end of the biological family and erasing the distinctions between men and women.
His underline, not mine. You may wonder why I bring up cloning in this thread but it’s all part of the same underlying principal
Following is the real point of the article quoted above and is partly how legislation is using bogus biological terminology (he has many posts on this).
Look back in his site for articles on what is happening right now in surrogacy. Some may say all of that would go away if it’s made legal- just like organ purchasing. I say the poor and weak will always be thefarmed and it is better for them to have help getting a job than selling their wombs, babies and organs. No matter how difficult it is. It is not really a win-win situation.
People have mentioned other surrogacy arrangements with relatives, etc. without pay, but voluntary. These situations have really the same, plus other problems that can be far reaching even outside your own family. Christians can remember Abraham, Sarah and Hagar as a big example. The Bible doesn’t always say something is wrong, or a sin, but shows it.
These issues really have the same underpinning as polygamy, SSM, prostitution, sex slavery, pedophilia, adultery, etc. too. It’s not about the sex (or lack of, in these times). It’s about a view of the human body being an integral part of the human individual and not just an object whether bought and sold, or for our own desires. (see JoJo’s post above)
We are talking principals in this thread, not what the actual laws should be. However for me any good law will have at least the acceptance of natural human rights (not personhood, etc.). Sure some will disobey and there will be debate, arguments, etc. But this is the crowning achievement (true progress) of civilization and the basis of true freedom and liberty. It would be a shame to go backwards.
Re comment # 124
I’m a control freak. And even I think there’s something sinister about attempting that level of control. I’m thinking : (1) we may one day find out that there was a great deal more to the connection between the unborn child and the woman carrying him. And we’ll find that out when we see something vitally important missing in people who emerged from artificial wombs. (2) I’m not officially a Catholic, but I find I agree with K C Mulville (comment #25). Also with Practical Mary (comment # 129) (3) We really should all carefully read or reread Enemies of Eros by Maggie Gallagher.