Is ʻsurrogacyʼ an infertility treatment?

Abstract

In this article, it is argued that it is problematic to construe the debate around the process labelled ‘surrogacy’ as a form for infertility treatment. Firstly, this way of defining what happens opens up a new form of medical desire where a growing number of people wish to have children through ‘surrogacy’. This medicalizes childlessness and creates pressure within health services to respond to the desires of an ever-growing group of patients. Secondly, this labels the woman who carries the child as a ‘surrogate’ and defines her as a core element in a ‘treatment method’. This way of phrasing and defining what happens puts the woman carrying the child in an unacceptable moral position within the health system. Thirdly, by viewing the woman carrying the child as a ‘substitute’ for a mother or as a ‘temporary custodian’ ignores the unique relationship between the foetus and the pregnant woman. To keep the ethical issues in focus in the ‘surrogacy’ process, it is necessary for health professionals to always accept the woman who goes through gestation and birth as the mother of the child. This unconditional acceptance shifts the core of the process away from the idea of ‘treatment’ and towards ‘adoption’ as the defining element in the process. Consequently, it will be easier to accept ‘surrogacy’ as a complicated and wide-ranging process as well as to secure the basic human rights of the pregnant woman and the welfare of the child being born.