Foreword: Compensated Surrogacy in the Age of Windsor
2014; University of Washington School of Law; Volume: 89; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1942-9983
Autores Tópico(s)Reproductive Health and Technologies
ResumoHaving my baby, what a lovely way of saying how much you love me; Having my baby, what a lovely way of saying what you 're thinking of me ... .* 1When Paul Anka sang those chart-topping words in 1974, the first sperm bank had recently opened in New York City,2 and it would still be four years before Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in England3 and yet another eight years before the now-famous Baby M was bom.4 In celebrating his wife's traditional pregnancy, Anka's song achieved a rare coup-topping both the Billboard Hot 100 and many lists of the worst songs ever.5 The song made people of many different viewpoints commonly uncomfortable. Feminists and other liberal thinkers criticized it as misogynistically claiming male dominance (my, not our baby) and seeming to value women only for their capacity to reproduce.6 At the same time, religious and conservative thinkers took exception to its cavalier approach to abortion ([d]idn't have to keep it. . . [y]ou could have swept it from your life).7The song's controversy has not abated with time; rather, it continues to stir debate.8 The raw and lasting nerves the song has touched are not unlike those set on edge by the topic of surrogacy, especially compensated surrogacy.9 The surrogacy debate begins with the issues of sex, gender, reproduction, children-already individually and intersectionally heavily laden with cultural contest-and adds issues of money and commerce. Compounding matters further, add the twentyfirst century issues of fast-paced technological innovation and increasingly global markets that are affecting every area of life. There is no easy place to stand amid such a turbulent swirl.Like Anka's song, compensated surrogacy also makes people of many different political and ideological persuasions commonly uncomfortable. For example, many feminist, critical race, and social justice theorists continue to raise concerns that compensated surrogacy subjugates women, especially women of color and poor women.10 At the same time, progressives are uncomfortable restricting the liberty of a woman to choose how to use her own body* 11 or insisting that her labor be done only as charity.12 Likewise, few progressives are comfortable restricting the availability of surrogacy when it is well known that it often supports the formation of nontraditional families, such as parenting by gay men.13 Surrogacy's disruption of the heteronormativity and essentialism of traditional parenting roles cannot be underestimated, although it reinforces a pervasive norm of genetic connection as most desirable for a parent-child relationship. Were the genetic connection to a child less privileged, adoption would be a readily available substitute for surrogacy for those persons wishing to parent but not willing or able to birth a child.14Progressive thinkers are not the only ones searching for a foot-hold on this difficult issue. Ordinarily, conservative thinkers would be strong supporters of markets and little concerned with the commodification of labor.15 To push the issue, what, for instance, is worse about paying a woman to have a child than paying a woman for sex work or to work in sweat-shop conditions sewing athletic wear? But for conservatives and other thinkers who want to draw a clear line against selling babies, is compensated surrogacy really all that far away? While surrogacy supporters are careful to distinguish surrogacy from selling babies,16 it is difficult to argue that the intended parents are paying for anything other than a baby. The benefit of the bargain is getting a baby and the only exchange that will complete the contract to the intended parents' satisfaction.The examples above are but the tip of the iceberg in exploring the challenging and interesting questions of law, ethics, and policy raised by compensated surrogacy. Those questions are further complicated by wide variation among individual states' approaches to the regulation of compensated surrogacy. …
Referência(s)