Rising infertility rates might not seem to be incongruous with a world trying to grapple with an ever-increasing population. However, several estimates round the globe, including that of WHO, indicate that infertility is indeed a serious health issue affecting almost 17%of the world’s adult population.
Hence several interventions like surrogacy and ART (Assisted Reproductive Technologies) technologies become useful to curb the malice of infertility so that humans can thrive sustainably, facilitating the fulfillment of essential human rights by each one of us. Among all such interventions, surrogacy is the most popular one owing to its cost effectiveness. However, since this method involves the use of third-party gametes or uterus, it presents a labyrinth of moral and ethical issues which requires our attention.
Religious Orthodoxy and Prejudices
Though times have changed from HAGAR, who was banished for bearing the surrogate child ISMAEL, little have changed for Catholic church on its stance for surrogacy. Traditional and religious elements in society perceive motherhood and procreation as sanctimonious, a gift from God, which ought to be preserved in the most natural form. Any external intervention by man is seen as jeopardizing the natural law. They seek an outright ban on surrogacy on moral and religious grounds.
However, such a narrow outlook towards surrogacy is replete with several societal prejudices. As a result, parties opting for surrogacy are seen to be violating the accepted moral norms and are subjected to several social barriers which are mostly skewed against woman. For example, a women willing to be a surrogate mother is perceived as a ‘whore’ who carries the ‘illegitimate child’ of another man and is banished from the society. Couples who opt for surrogacy are also labelled and name-shamed in most societies.
Liberalists solution – Profession and Body Autonomy
Hence, liberal scholars argue for a more accommodative approach towards surrogacy. They argue that surrogacy should be devoid of any moral ethos as motherhood and procreation is not a holier than thou choice, and thus there’s nothing immoral to it. They urge to consider surrogacy as a profession just like any other and therefore supports commercial surrogacy, wherein the willing surrogate woman is paid in cash for her service.
Just like liberalism, liberal feminism is rooted in individual autonomy, and some scholars (John Robertson, Avi Katz, etc.) are opposed to any ban on commercial surrogacy as they view it as an interference on the rights and liberty of the intended couples as well as the surrogate mother. Hence, they highlight surrogacy as an act where parties exercise their own choice and bodily autonomy.
A Ground reality check: Autonomy vs Commodification
These arguments put surrogacy on a pedestal where surrogate women are acting as agents and negotiators. However, the rapid commercialization of surrogacy and the resultant expansion of markets into developing countries present a rather opposite picture of child’s and women’s rights.
Several ethnographic research, (wherein a researcher interacts directly with a community to collect data and analyze their behavior), such as that of Andrea Whittaker for Rutgers University, 2018, throw light to the fact that most of the commercial surrogacies are performed in low-income countries like India, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, etc. In fact, after the legislative nod for gestational surrogacy in late 1990s in India, the country has become the capital for “rental wombs”. Amrita Pande, in her book “Women in Labor”, points out that most of the intended surrogate women come from low income or similar vulnerable groups, who often struggle to eke out a living. She reveals that infertility clinics have become breeding rooms for babies of affluent couples. Such clinics give precedence only to the preferences of couples, while intended mothers need to go through a “detailed recruitment process” which involves complex medical procedures and economic background check-up. Couples too prefer women from poor backgrounds as they have very low bargaining power and is easily condescending. Therefore, chances of vulnerable women being coerced into surrogacy without their full informed consent is very high. They also enjoy very little rights with respect to the newborn child. Hence the whole concept of bodily autonomy and women exercising their choice is being tossed into the air and rather what we see is commodification of womanhood. Thus, commercial surrogacy to fulfill the reproductive aspirations often tramples upon the rights of vulnerable women. Strands of feminism like Marxist and Radical, view it as objectifying and demeaning a woman’s dignity and seeks a ban on it.
Altruistic Surrogacy
Commercial surrogacy has perpetrated other human rights abuses as well. Abandonment of children born with undesirable characteristics, abuse of surrogate mother’s health, illegal export and import of gametes, etc. are rampant. Thus, the whole paradigm of commercial surrogacy has been permeated with human rights abuses and protracted legal battles. India has recently banned this and has touted for altruistic surrogacy wherein the carrier woman is not paid any kind of remuneration other than medical expenses.
Supporters of altruistic surrogacy have argued that motherhood should be respected and any kind of payment to it is disrespectful to the natural law. They also hope that exploitative practices associated with surrogacy and its commercialization can be curbed with it. But the exercise of bodily autonomy by women is doubtful in this case too.
As depicted in the movie ‘Children of Men’, a world full of infertile humans reeks only despair and hopelessness. However, touting surrogacy as a panacea for infertility is not wise. Alternatives like ART technologies and even adoption should be promoted and surrogacy in any case should be properly regulated. Nevertheless, sensitizing the society is the way forward rather than a top-down approach.
