Surrogacy Ethical Dilemmas

Surrogacy: An Ethical Implementation or a Mere Exploitation?

By definition, surrogacy “describes a reproductive model where a woman carries a pregnancy and delivers a child on behalf of a couple where the woman is unable to do so, because of a congenital or acquired uterine abnormality, or because of a serious medical contraindication to pregnancy.” (Milliez, 2008)

Surrogacy first came into light and started as “traditional surrogacy”, which typically involves a husband of an infertile wife to furnish his sperm to a “surrogate” woman who supplies half of the genetic material for the baby as well as carrying the pregnancy and enduring the delivery. The surrogate mother is often compensated for carrying the baby and for her expenses and is expected to turn the baby over to the contracting couple at birth. Today, traditional surrogacy has been replaced by gestational surrogacy in which the birth mother has no genetic tie to the child: she is simply the bearer.

Surrogacy has become an increasingly important topic in today’s world. Despite the controversy surrounding it, surrogacy has altered who can become capable of having children, as well as how children can be conceived. It has also succeeded in providing many couples with the

John Azolins (n.d.) expresses that these arguments may have less ethical objections due to the fact that the child is believed to be the child of the parents commissioning the surrogate mother to carry the child. Furthermore, it is assumed that the relationships and understandings between the parents and the surrogate mother and child are clear and defined. For the reasons discussed above, and the ostensible fact that the child is genetically related to the parents, the child should legally belong to the intended