Analysis Of Purdy 's Surrogate Mothering From A Consequentialist Point Of View

Commercial surrogacy is the process in which a woman is paid a fee to carry and deliver a baby to term. Once the baby is delivered, the woman relinquishes all parental rights to the commissioning couple who exclusively raise the child as their own. Altruistic surrogacy, by contrast, is an arrangement where the surrogate receives reimbursement but only for the expenses that she may have incurred during the pregnancy. In this essay I will argue that commercial surrogacy should not be market-inalienable. I will start by outlining Elizabeth Anderson’s argument in “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?” in which she offers a number of criticisms to commercial surrogacy. I will then outline objections to the argument and highlight how her argument is highly speculative and does not provide an adequate basis for the prohibition of commercial surrogacy.

Cases of this kind emphasise the tension between two significant policy goals: the child’s best interests, which must dominate the court’s determination as to whether to grant parenting orders, and the prohibition of commercial surrogacy. The former, naturally, prevails. In every published case, the Family Court relied on the evidence tendered by the intended parents indicating the foreign birth mother’s consent to the applications, even where some of that evidence was quite concerning; the birth mother’s lack of interest in parenting the child;and the satisfactory nature of the parenting arrangements achieved under the agreement, in concluding that the best interests of the child were served by making the parenting orders.The earliest published international surrogacy case is Re Mark (an application relating to parental responsibilities). The facts are fairly typical. A couple from Victoria entered into a surrogacy contract under which a woman in California agreed to bear a child for them; the ovum was supplied by an anonymous woman, and one of the applicants provided the

I read an article that was published on The Hasting Center Journal, called “The Case Against Surrogate Parenting”, by Herbert Krimmel, Krimmel takes a stand against surrogate motherhood arrangements because of the many ethical issues it causes, he argues surrogate motherhood, is a financial profit, there can be conflicts during the process, and is designed to separate in the mind of the surrogate mother. First, Krimmel argues that the reason a woman often or always undertakes the pregnancy is because of the money motive. He states, “The cause of this dissociation is some other benefit she will receive, most often money.' In other words, her desire to create a child is born of some motive other than the desire to be a parent. This separation

Baby Business by Insight on SBS had a discussion about surrogacy in relation to a couple that had a baby though surrogacy. In the show it was said that most surrogate mothers have genetically babies, which the mother gives her egg and the father gives his sperm and the doctor inseminates it in the surrogate mother. Most of the everyday people have to the term “renting a womb” towards surrogacy whereas the Women Health Resources

Firstly, some people have chosen to agree with this type of practice because of it’s benefits to couples of whom can not conceive a child. Whether it be a homosexual couple, or just a couple who is infertile and can’t have children. (Surrogate Mothers: Not So Novel After All, 28-34) In addition, the women who do end up as surrogate mothers, end up feeling better about giving a childless couple, the gift of having a child. Also other advantages that can be taken into account brings us back to same gender couples who can not conceive a child on their own, these couples would be now allowed to have a child of their own. (Gay Men Who Become Fathers via Surrogacy: The Transition to Parenthood, 111-141) They would, of course provide their sperm or egg, to the mother. This is a more efficient way to get a child, rather than go with adoption of another

The readings for this day were by Carol Delaney and Amrite Pande and focused on topics of motherhood, paternity, and surrogacy. In Delaney’s work The Meaning of Paternity and the Virgin Birth Debate, she uses both her own ethnographic research done in Turkey and Malinowski’s research with the Trobrianders to unravel the focus on paternity in “primitive” cultures by showing that it stems from anthropologists’ ignorance to the constructed nature of their own concepts of paternity that stem from the longstanding Western religious belief in monogenesis (Delaney 1986). On a different note, the other reading, Commercial Surrogacy in India: Manufacturing a Perfect Mother-Worker by Pande, is an insight into the Hope Maternity Clinic in Anand, Gujarat, India and the way the surrogates are contradictorily told their surrogacy is both natural and commercialized, and the intersections of classism and globalization that occur within that system (Pande, 2010).

In this age of technology and innovation, what was once science fiction is now becoming a reality. Human reproductive cloning is on the forefront for providing prospective parents with a new mode of reproduction. However, with the concept of reproductive cloning comes an unprecedented set of ethical issues. Issues especially focused on how cloning may affect the child’s right to an open future are highlighted by philosophers such as Dena Davis. Davis takes a neutral stance on reproductive cloning and argues that it is morally impermissible when used for duplicative motives, but permissible when used for logistical motives. Duplicative motives are when “the genetic replication itself… is the attraction” (Davis 160) and the parents wish for their child to be a mere copy of their donor. Logistical motivations are when the parents’ end goal “is simply to have a child” that is genetically related (Davis 159). Davis leaves the evaluation of such parental motives in the hands of healthcare professionals. Philosophers McGee and Wilmut add to Davis’ position, but call for a more holistic evaluation of parental motives and competency by following an adoption model. In this paper, I will support Davis’ argument on the moral permissibility of reproductive cloning under logistical motivations by addressing the main concerns that surround reproductive cloning. First, I shall reconstruct Davis’ argument in favor of reproductive cloning

In act utilitarianism, the consequences of an action are judged individually using the greatest happiness principle. The morality of any surrogacy agreement, therefore, is dependent on the outcome for the participants, does it ultimately cause more joy than pain? In cases where the surrogate experiences grief, it becomes a matter of weighing this pain against the joy of the receiving couple. Ultimately, due to the difficulty in quantifying such human emotions, its application leads to nebulous ethical conclusions.

Surrogate mothers carry another couple’s child with her own eggs or fertilized eggs from other women. Surrogate motherhood is unethical and needs to be banned due to the fact that reproductive technologies are inhuman and a form of violence therefore, as surrogacy becomes more popular, legal problems proliferate. Reproductive technologies such as In Vitro Fertilization and surrogacy are a form of violence against women because they technologically ravage women's bodies. In Vitro Fertilization is a medical procedure that's done where an egg is fertilized by sperm in a test tube (Raymond 1). The procedure is just inhuman in many ways, the mother is not naturally carrying the bay when fertilized egg and sperm are implanted

With two of the objections being, women should not sell thier body for profit and the risks associated with pregnancy are high (Warnock, 1984, p. 427). Surrogacy should not be seen as selling ones body, but helping another couple experience parent hood (Steinbock, 1988, p. 427). Steinbock (1988) uses the example of a stuntman, who performs risky tasks for money, which is their decision to do so, and they enjoy doing it, even though there are risks associated (p. 427). Steinbock (1988) argues some women enjoy pregnancy and find the role a better option compared to their career and view their decision as altruistic, providing a couple with a child, which without the surrogate they may not have achieved (p. 427). Prostitution is an example of selling ones body for money yet this practice continues all around the world. Individuals today sell sperm and donate organs, so why should surrogacy be singled out? (Steinbock, 1988, p. 427). Individuals are in charge of their own bodies and no one should be able to have an opinion as to what they decide to do or not do with their body, regardless of the risks. There are risks associated with anything in life and as long as the surrogate has taken all steps to ensure they are ready for surrogacy and laws and regulations are in place, then surrogacy should be allowed to continue for couples who cannot

In today’s society, surrogacy is becoming a more and more popular and common issue. For many couples who cannot or unwilling to carry babies by themselves, surrogacy is the first choice to have their own babies and build a family. The legality of surrogacy is different for every country. There are countries that consider the birth mother as the legal mother while there are those that don't. Besides, a lower price of surrogacy in developing countries drives them to find surrogate mother overseas. Thus, international

Perhaps one of the greatest human desires is to create and love a child. There are those who, by nature, do not possess such personal aspiration, seeking preventative measures to avoid conception. Then there are those thrilled to take on the role of parent, whether or not pregnancy fit into the initial plan. Still there are those who long for a tiny biological life, which cannot be traditionally conceived or carried to term due to a failure of mechanisms within the body beyond the control of the intended parents. Such problematic infertility issues have prompted “would be” parents to turn to surrogacy arrangements to acquire a gestational surrogate, a woman who would consent to implantation and of a couple’s embryo created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and carrying the fetus to termination should a pregnancy result. Referred to as a “Wild, Wild West” globalized industry, the United States is a relatively unregulated playground of opportunity for commercial “for hire” contractual surrogacy otherwise found illegal in the majority of developed countries around the world. In terms of state to state approaches regulating surrogacy reproductive modalities, a patchwork of laws exist from extreme outlawing of surrogacy, permissibility with limitations, or most favorable flexible allowance in operation; consumers of

When deciding about surrogacy, there are two roads that can be taken: traditional surrogacy or gestational surrogacy. Traditional surrogates were the first that came about. This involves artificial insemination. A Traditional surrogate is a woman who is artificially inseminated with the father’s sperm. She then carries the baby for nine months and delivers it for the family to raise. A traditional surrogate is the baby’s biological mother because her egg was fertilized by the father’s sperm. Donor sperm can also be used in traditional surrogacy. The other route is gestational surrogacy. This involves in vitro fertilization (IVF). Eggs are harvested from a woman, fertilized with sperm from the father or a donor, then that embryo is placed in the uterus of a gestational surrogate. The surrogate then carries the baby for nine months and gives it up for the intended parents to raise. A gestational surrogate has no genetic ties to the child because it was not her egg that was fertilized to make the baby. A gestational surrogate is considered the baby’s birth mother, but the biological mother is still the women whose eggs were donated and fertilized (“Using a Surrogate Mother…”).

There are many couples in the world that cannot conceive babies. Surrogacy has helped millions of families and individuals have children. Some people say that surrogacy is unhealthy for the surrogate mothers and that it employs immoral methods for achieving pregnancy and parenthood; however, surrogacy allows everyone to be able to have a child of their own even if they cannot physically conceive one, it is beneficial to society, and it does not carry the same stigma as it did years ago.

These two arguments help to show the problem with the purchase and sale of children in relation to surrogacy. Sandel argues that a pregnant mother cannot voluntarily enter into a contract to give her unborn child away once birthed because she is unlikely to be fully informed of all the consequences and details. Sandel goes on to say that treating a child as a commodity degrades them because they are now used as a form of profit. Based on Sandel’s two arguments, when an issue arises over the products or processes of a human body there can be no way in which the transaction could take place in an entirely voluntary matter. One party will always be at a disadvantage in one way or another and societal norms will not allow for transactions, where there appears to be no disadvantage present, to take place.