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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
I am commenting a lot here because I believe this is the really important issue of our times: not immigration, corrupt politicians, the economy or even the related issues of SSM.
How we look at and treat human beings. The path taken here will determine everything.
There is a lot of conflating going on in this discussion. In an area that is obviously such an ethical minefield, little differences make all the difference.
I can agree that surrogacy utilizing the surrogate’s ovum is ethically much more problematic than when the ovum comes from the custodial mother.
Again, let’s think about the children at least a little.
There is no reason why a child raised by his loving biological parents is harmed by being carried by a surrogate. That child has the love, purpose, meaning, and joy of any other child, all else being equal.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t understand the objection to conceiving children in a non-natural way. When something is as undeniably good and important as children being conceived by loving parents, what difference does it make if the method is not natural?
There will be problems and risks with surrogacy, just as there are with adoption, just as there are when natural parents have children in the usual way. But in all three cases the benefits overwhelm the costs.
As for baby-selling, this is one of those things that sounds entirely bad, but when you look into it further it has its good points.
Adoption today is equivalent to selling babies at the government-mandated price of $0. Because this price is below the market clearing price it leads to an excess of babies demanded over babies supplied, that is, a shortage of babies to adopt.
The shortage is dealt with in several ways:
Compared to all this, selling doesn’t seem so bad.
Howellis beat me to the punch there. My wife and I wish to adopt but the sheer compliance costs, endless waiting, and legal hoops are very discouraging. “Selling” a child is humane by comparison to the above.
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
Edited 10 hours ago
Exactly.
Also, the ‘nobody’s considering the baby’ argument is the weakest. There is no baby until the contract, also the same is used against people saying it’s better to avoid unwed, unwanted pregnancies but if they happen love the baby and the mom, type thing.
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. ·1 hour ago
Edited 1 hour ago
I don’t think we will see any such thing. While birth mom shares some DNA with the child, I doubt it is needed to live.
We will have plenty of time with their use in animals to be sure.
This still gets back to the idea, however, that pregnancy is someone a holy experience. I am fine with that interpretation, I just don’t share it.
Sorry, I misunderstood where ‘the think about the children’ thing was going. There are now children who are old enough from artificial insemination who have quite a bit to say. No one wishes they do not exist, but we need to listen.Big problems come when humans become items to buy and sell.
Adoption itself is a big deal with just the ‘unwanted, or wanted but given up for good reasons’ thing to work through. Think about adding in a commercial transaction aspect. We always turn out to be not just private property.
All of this (and more) is avoided (and yes, some people may not have children) if humans (and their bodies/parts) are considered truly exceptional and not a market item- for any reason. Even if the reason seems good. If something like this happens, the the resulting human is just as exceptional and given the same right not to be anyone’s property- clones, perhaps someday t00. I used to wonder why articles considering possible cloning would consider them any less than any other person besides the fact that there already was the same person (different upbringing). This is it.
I had never even contemplated the idea of selling an infant. But Ansonia, would you find the idea of parents “buying” an infant off of a pregnant teenager preferable to that same mother either aborting the child or raising it solo and collecting federal benefits for life? I don’t mean to divert or change topics, so it might be more appropriate for a different topic of its own.
Ha. Nah not at all. I could see where the debate would fall along lines very similar to the organ sale debate. But what you describe from that book…so different than women having more and more children to receive more benefits? I’m not seriously advocating this, though it’s novel debate material for sure.
This still gets back to the idea, however, that pregnancy is someone a holy experience. I am fine with that interpretation, I just don’t share it.
I argue that pregnancy is part of a larger experience … family … that is holy. My objection is that family life and sexual life go together, and form a greater whole, and that its meaning and virtue is grounded on its relation to the whole.
It’s the separation that bothers me. Once you separate it into unconnected parts, the meaning of the family evaporates, and everything becomes a separate transaction. The meaning of the whole is lost.
… Like hell it is. It’s a lot more than that.
And if everything becomes a separate transaction, why have any objection to prostitution or baby-selling or any other activity? They all become meaningless anyway. ·46 minutes ago
I am not convinced by the slippery slope. I don’t see how this leads to baby selling.
This still gets back to the idea, however, that pregnancy is someone a holy experience. I am fine with that interpretation, I just don’t share it.
I am not convinced by the slippery slope. I don’t see how this leads to baby selling. ·0 minutes ago
What slippery slope? It is baby selling. You can buy the sperm. You can buy the egg. You can rent the womb. What’s not for sale?
Also, I don’t think pregnancy is exactly “holy” either. But I think the relationship of birth mother to child is “real”. If that is not a real tie between two human beings, nothing is. Trading that for money, just like trading sex for money, is an immeasurable sacrifice of one’s humanity and dignity.
This still gets back to the idea, however, that pregnancy is someone a holy experience. I am fine with that interpretation, I just don’t share it.
I am not convinced by the slippery slope. I don’t see how this leads to baby selling. ·0 minutes ago
What slippery slope? It is baby selling. You can buy the sperm. You can buy the egg. You can rent the womb. What’s not for sale?
Also, I don’t think pregnancy is exactly “holy” either. But I think the relationship of birth mother to child is “real”. If that is not a real tie between two human beings, nothing is. Trading that for money, just like trading sex for money, is an immeasurable sacrifice of one’s humanity and dignity. ·0 minutes ago
I use holy in a technical sense, not a religious one.
The tie between a birth mother and child is real.
And we are going in circles. I don’t think it is ” immeasurable sacrifice of one’s humanity and dignity”. You do. No middle ground possible.
But it is not selling babies anymore than adoption is.
Re : comment # 140Yes. We do the most damage to ourselves and others when we act as if free means ‘no price’.
I thought the same thing about SSM after clicking on Carol’s link and reading the 2nd paragraph. Also after clicking and reading Foxfier’s link at comment #46.
Are gay married couples seeking out gestational carriers because using women that way enables one of them to be a biological parent to their child?
But a need to control women for fun and profit is, I think, also fueling Surrogacy. I mean tell me you don’t think there could be dollar signs and resentment (pimp mentality, in other words) in the eyes of some of those military husbands of surrogate mothers. I’m not saying we didn’t set ourselves up to be controlled this way when, years ago, we chose to feed on the lie that we, in effect, owned our unborn children. I’m just saying I think male resentment and need to dominate ( and the homosexual male’s envy of young women) is also the dark side of surrogacy. ·7 hours ago
Edited 5 hours ago
Wait, surrogacy is fulled by male resentment and a need to dominate?
What?
Surrogacy
Fueled not only–or even primarily–by male resentment and need to dominate. But yes.
I hope I can make time to defend that later today.
[There is]…a shortage of babies to adopt.
The shortage is dealt with in several ways:
And for all this, pro-aborts still beat the overpopulation drum, saying that there’s too many babies when the exact opposite is true.
Re : comment 133
I thought the same thing about SSM after clicking on Carol’s link and reading the 2nd paragraph. Also after clicking and reading Foxfier’s link at comment #46.
Are gay married couples seeking out gestational carriers because using women that way enables one of them to be a biological parent to their child?
But a need to control women for fun and profit is, I think, also fueling Surrogacy. I mean tell me you don’t think there could be dollar signs, resentment and contempt (pimp mentality, in other words) in the eyes of some of those military husbands of surrogate mothers. I’m not saying we didn’t set ourselves up to be controlled this way when, years ago, we chose to feed on the lie that we, in effect, owned our unborn children. I’m just saying I think male resentment and need to dominate ( and the homosexual male’s envy of young women) is also the dark side of surrogacy.
I thought the same thing about SSM after clicking on Carol’s link and reading the 2nd paragraph. Also after clicking and reading Foxfier’s link at comment #46.
I think the use of gestational carriers ensures gays that by the time we can’t avoid acknowledging , when all other things are equal, kids are better off with heterosexual married couples, it will be too late for that knowledge to keep gay married couples from having the experience, identity and power of being parents.
But a need to control women for fun and profit is, I think, also fueling Surrogacy. I mean tell me you don’t think there could be dollar signs and resentment in the eyes of some of those military husbands …·1 minute ago
I use holy in a technical sense, not a religious one.
The tie between a birth mother and child is real.
And we are going in circles. I don’t think it is ” immeasurable sacrifice of one’s humanity and dignity”. You do. No middle ground possible.
But it is not selling babies anymore than adoption is. ·16 hours ago
I don’t claim expertise but the way I understand adoption, it is has a crucial difference from surrogacy. It’s an effort to find a good solution for an existing child. It’s acknowledged to be a necessary compromise. If the biological parents are paid it becomes baby selling, but I did think that was illegal. If the child were intentionally created to sell, which I’m sure is illegal, that would be a form of surrogacy.
Someone pointed out that serial, intentional welfare mothers are practicing a form of baby-selling, and I’d agree with that. We have some perverse incentives there.
I don’t know what the technical sense of holy is, but I suppose we do have different assumptions, some of which are influenced by gender.
I use holy in a technical sense, not a religious one.
The tie between a birth mother and child is real.
And we are going in circles. I don’t think it is ” immeasurable sacrifice of one’s humanity and dignity”. You do. No middle ground possible.
But it is not selling babies anymore than adoption is. ·16 hours ago
I don’t know what the technical sense of holy is, but I suppose we do have different assumptions, some of which are influenced by gender. ·9 minutes ago
Holy as in Sacred.
As opposed to Mundane.
I hope I can make time to defend that later today. ·4 hours ago
I would hope so. I don’t see it that way at all. I just see couples that cannot have their baby wanted to have their baby. What male resentment and a need to dominate have to do with it are beyond me.
I don’t claim expertise but the way I understand adoption, it is has a crucial difference from surrogacy. It’s an effort to find a good solution for an existing child. It’s acknowledged to be a necessary compromise. If the biological parents are paid it becomes baby selling, but I did think that was illegal. If the child were intentionally created to sell, which I’m sure is illegal, that would be a form of surrogacy.
Someone pointed out that serial, intentional welfare mothers are practicing a form of baby-selling, and I’d agree with that. We have some perverse incentives there.
I do not think having a baby for economic reasons is “baby-selling”. People have done that since farming. Selling a baby for money is baby-selling. Making a baby to be sold is not a form of surrogacy as we have been talking about. Nor has its practice in America led to that.
How we look at and treat human beings. The path taken here will determine everything. ·3 hours ago
It is interesting. I’ve come to see that SSM is a subset of this debate, in many ways. Perhaps worth noting for a separate thread.
But yes, kinship. Kinship, kinship, kinship. One of the most important aspects of being human and certainly one of the least discussed. Never do you see it so clearly as at times like this.
This still gets back to the idea, however, that pregnancy is someone a holy experience. I am fine with that interpretation, I just don’t share it.
I argue that pregnancy is part of a larger experience … family … that is holy. My objection is that family life and sexual life go together, and form a greater whole, and that its meaning and virtue is grounded on its relation to the whole.
It’s the separation that bothers me. Once you separate it into unconnected parts, the meaning of the family evaporates, and everything becomes a separate transaction. The meaning of the whole is lost.
… Like hell it is. It’s a lot more than that.
And if everything becomes a separate transaction, why have any objection to prostitution or baby-selling or any other activity? They all become meaningless anyway.
Edited 54 minutes ago
Since you are making a claim, do you have anything to back it up?
I mean, we have no way of knowing how freely you are posting on Ricochet. Does that mean we should assume you are being forced until you can prove you are not?
While the pimps and cultures you mention are bad, what, exactly is the link between that and military wives? Are you saying members of the military are more likely to pimp out their wives?
Edited 5 minutes ago
You have totally lost me.Idid not bring up pimps and military wives in the same post, you did. I asked the question:
Your question back to me above makes no sense.
Is there a lot more paid surrogacy in Saudia Arabia, or Islamic nations now than America? (seeing as they fit the bill of “more male perpetrated violence” well)
You have not sold me that surrogacy is somehow linked to male domination of women. You are right, it does sound hysterical. Your word.