Surrogate Motherhood

wombs for hire

BLAS, valerie anne

Definition
• Surrogacy is an arrangement whereby a
woman agrees to become pregnant for the
purpose of gestating and giving birth to a
child for others to raise.
• Latin word, surrogatus (substituted)

Old testament [Genesis 16]:

Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, slept with
Abraham to bear a child for her infertile
mistress
 Types of surrogacy

Traditional surrogacy

Gestational surrogacy
 Traditional Surrogacy
Partial or genetic contracted motherhood
• Using artificial insemination: gestational
mother is impregnated with the sperm of the
commissioning father

• Pregnant woman is both the genetic and

gestational mother of the child
• she relinquishes her role of social mother to the
commissioning mother.
 Gestational Surrogacy
Complete or gestational contracted motherhood
• Using in vitro fertilization, eggs and sperm are
extracted from the donors and in vitro fertilized
and implanted into uterus of the surrogate
mother

• pregnant woman makes no genetic contribution

to the child
• she is the child’s birth mother.
• In cases of infertility: donor sperm or donor eggs
are transplanted
 Why become a surrogate mother?
Statistics:
• mostly educated women (>13 years education)
• not primarily for money
• predominantly Christians (Catholics and Protestants)
• wishes the intending family to enjoy the special love and
gratification of a child
• driven to share what they have
• relieve some of the social stigma of not being able to
produce a child.
It takes a special person to become a surrogate
• stresses associated: insemination, pain, unpleasant side
effects, depression, guilt difficulty remaining unattached,
relinquishing, etc.
Surrogate Motherhood

PROS CONS
 PROS
• It allows couples who want a family but who
were prevented from having one by infertility to
have a child
– Medical conditions: damaged ovaries (endometriosis,
destroyed ovaries, menopause, severe ovulatory
disorders, genetic disorders)
• It does not harm both parties if arrangement
does not harm either
• Children are not conceived for their own sakes,
but for another’s benefit
 CONS
• surrogacy arrangements are in reality contracts
for the purchase of a child
• surrogate arrangements depersonalize
reproduction
• create a separation of genetic, gestational, and
social parenthood
• right to be a parent must be intuitive and deeply
rooted
 Great similarity between
gestational commercial
surrogacy and organ
transplant marketing
Despite claims to freedom
of choice, surrogacy is a
form of prostitution and
slavery, exploitation of
the poor and needy by
those who are better off
Women are frequently
reduced to biological
capacity.
Can anyone predict the emotions associated with
relinquishing a child?

Should the child be told?

What are the possible adverse psychological effects on the
child?
What identity crisis might ensue, and will there be a desire
on the part of the child to know his/her gestational
mother?

What happens when no one wants a handicapped

newborn?

Will surrogate arrangements be used not only by infertile

couples but also for the sake of convenience, or by
single men or women?
Would this lead to commercialization of surrogacy and
expose the surrogate mother to possible exploitation?
 Religious Issues
Mother Mary… a surrogate mother?

Definition: surrogacy is an arrangement

whereby a woman agrees to become
pregnant for the purpose of giving birth to
a child for others to raise

she did not give up Jesus to be raised by

someone else, she raised him
Abraham and Sarah… and Hagar?
practice of her native country
one of the legal codes of Mesopotamia
No established moral foundations

Cursed?
Abraham allowed Sarah to lead him astray
Outcome: suffering and disappointment
Tension, heartache, and hatred bet the women

Intense bitter dissension between the offspring’s of Sarah

and Hagar
- felt in the modern world today

Sarah’s descendants (Jews) vs. Hagar’s

descendants (Arabs)
Hagar = modern woman

Being a surrogate gave her an elitist feeling

She became pompous and proud would not
consent to the plan to turn her child over to the
mistress
Why should her child be passed off as the wife’s
son?

She had second thoughts

…still happens today.
 Church Teachings
Humanae Vitae, 1968 encyclical letter by Pope Paul
VI:
• There are two equal purposes of sex in marriage,
the unitive and the procreative, and that both must
be present in each act of sex in marriage
• If human beings truly are created in God's image
and likeness, then human love should imitate divine
love
• God's love issues forth creation in an act of supreme
and unfettered generosity
• Human love should be both love-giving and life-
giving
Donum Vitae, 1987 statement by the Vatican
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
• Assisted reproduction divorce procreation from
sexual union of the man and woman
• Calls infertility "a difficult trial" and expresses
sympathy towards "the suffering of spouses who
cannot have children”
• Its elaboration that "Physical sterility in fact can be a
call for other important services to life like adoption,
education work and assistance to other families and
to poor or handicapped children
• Reproductive technologies which seek to 'take' a
child apart from sexual intercourse do not treat a
child as what he or she truly is
• A child is not only "the most gratuitous gift of
marriage," but is also "a living testimony of the
mutual giving of his parents."
• Child's right: "to be the fruit of the specific act of the
conjugal love of his parents"
– nature of a surrogacy arrangement rules such out

• Gestational surrogacy: The mutual giving expressed

by what the Church calls "the language of the
bodies" morally requires that the child not only be
conceived through sex between its biological father
and mother, but also carried and gestated by its
genetic mother
• “the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the
womb, brought into the world and brought up by his
own parents."
 What does it mean to be a parent?
How should we consider children?

Is the child himself or herself being reduced

to a commodity, one good alongside other
goods we buy and sell in our economy?
If the answer to this is 'yes,' then paid surrogacy violates
the dignity of the personhood of our offspring, for only
THINGS have prices
people are too valuable to be for sale
Thank you