SURROGACY: SOCIOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING & IMPLICATIONS IN INDIAN SOCIETIES

Relevance:

Sociology:

• Population policy and family planning.

• Emerging issues: ageing, sex ratios, child and infant mortality, reproductive health.

G.S paper I: Society & social issues

• Women Empowerment

Context

Surrogacy has challenged the traditional concept of family by primarily by taking out the act of procreation one of the basic function of family out of the realm of wedlock and  sphere of family by introducing  a third party or surrogate mother , gamete donors or egg donor as assisted medium or surrogate mother for reproduction bearing child for them thereby surrogacy has fragmented motherhood into three competing women the gestational carrier , the egg donor or the genetic mother and the intending or the social mother based on their functional roles and thereby changes the / challenges the paternity and the  concept of  parentage.

Thus surrogacy challenges the most fundamental or primary unit of society family , the institution of marriage , social concept of parentage , relationships.

• Surrogacy makes motherhood a commercial service available on rent or  hire for monetary returns as popularly called womb for rent , on this reasoning surrogacy is taken as akin to prostitution and for the same reason many commercial surrogate mothers face  social stigma.
• Surrogacy as a form of reproductive technology has reshaped the role of gender and reinforce  the stereotyping against women of the breeders or baby makers.
• Besides, Surrogacy by its very nature presents a form of polarization in society by permitting the use of poor and third world women’s wombs to produce children for economically advantaged European American couples.

Hence , Surrogacy brings about a new area of social legal inquiry  due to the peculiar inherent nexus or the relation between law and social issues ,  changes in one reflects the change in other.

• While the pattern of family formation , parentage as social institutions  changes or redefined  (by surrogacy ) consequently law must change in order to incorporate and regulate and control such changes.
• Law in order to operate and function in society  must respect , acknowledge the social institutions and vice versa.
• Surrogacy offers a new technological innovative form of family formation in which biological or genetic connection between the couple ort potential parent and the child is redundant or not necessary and similarly bearing of child  within the wedlock is not always necessary as children could be born by a third party falling outside the union of marriage.
• A biological tie, marital unison is no longer a defining factor either in the foundation of family, marriage as prime social institution.
• Accordingly, surrogacy has brought significant changes in the social institution of family, marriage and social construction of motherhood.

Some of the significant changes are discussed below.

Surrogacy on family  structure &  composition :

• “Surrogacy by opening up the ‘family’ to single women and queer couples has changed the constitution of family” surrogacy has changed the established heterosexual-parented  family as single parent or  homosexual family.
• For instance, Superstar pianist Sir Elton John and his gay partner David Furnish commissioned surrogacy to have their two surrogate sons , in the year 2013.

Surrogacy changes traditional function of Family , Marriage  & Mother child Relationship :

• Marriage and Parenthood are God-ordained relationships. Surrogacy introduces a third party interference with a natural process thereby violation of God’s will.
• Many religious groups deem surrogacy as “mechanical adultery” for such inclusion.
• Surrogacy is an inherently unnatural process. As surrogate children may be borne with or without necessary genetic connection with the parents or the husband and wife hence surrogate children may be related  or may be partially related with either of the couple or may not be related to both.
• Surrogacy challenges the social construction of family and motherhood. “If a woman is willing to gestate a child in order to give it away to others this itself is un natural of motherhood”! 
• Further commercial Surrogacy disrupts the parent child relation and enables buying and selling of parental rights under surrogacy contract for monetary payment.
• Surrogacy differentiates between bearing and rearing children as a role of mother.
• Surrogacy causes shunning of all physical and emotional psychological relationship between women and her foetus.

Surrogacy reinforces the Gender Stereo type :

• As per a leading feminist Debra Satz in her work why something’s should not be for sale states that commercial surrogacy reinforces negative gender stereotype by viewing women as “‘baby machines”.
• The landmark American case of Johnson vs Calvertrepresents this societal perception of women as ” class of “breeder.”
• It signifies the notion that women are naturally fit for mothering, producing children used as mere wombs whose services may be hired for a defined period for a fixed sum of money.

Surrogacy imposes Patriarchy :

• Surrogacy represents a patriarchy in society as it seeks to promote the patriarchal line of ancestral lineage , inheritance and authority derived from the genetic or biological connection with the intending father.
• Gena Corea, in her work “The Mother Machine” opines that “surrogacy is part of a patriarchal conspiracy to control women’s bodies and reproduction.”

Dehumanizing and Commercializing motherhood :

• Surrogacy exploits a women’s bodies or reproductive labour as commodity or as any other labour offered for sale or hire in the market.
• “Such treatment of a woman’s reproductive capabilities as an inanimate object available for payment of a fee is reflective of the dehumanizing treatment to woman and dehumanizing of the sacred role of women as an ‘incubator available for payment of a fee”.
• The case of ‘Baby M’ of New Jersey could be cited as an example where ‘Surrogate mothers are degraded to baby-making machines which requires that the surrogate mother deny all her feelings’ of motherhood and makes her no more ‘than a contract labourer with neither any emotion or any legal rights over the child.

Surrogacy causes polarization class divide  in society :

• Commercial surrogacy reflects the notion of the race and class , inequality , power dynamics in terms of social economic positioning or status of parties involved in commercial surrogacy arrangements.
• At international level it appears that the south Asian women or women of color are easy to commodify, as they have a commonly shared social context of economic deprivation, illiteracy therefore they agree to act as gestational carrier and deliver babies for rich westerners, In the historical context, the African-American women or the slave women called as “Black Gestators served as surrogate mothers and wet nurse for the white master’s children.
• At present in India poor Indian women agree to commercial surrogates for rich foreign intending couples visiting India .

Surrogacy implicates social stigma & Prostitution :

• commercial surrogacy entails stigma on surrogate mothers ,she is equated with a  prostitute as she is making money by making use of her private body organ.
• Surrogate mothers are cast upon a stigma and denied social acceptance.  Surrogacy is a form of slavery or prostitution in which the surrogate is exploited through the enticements of money.
• Surrogacy, like prostitution, is payment of a fee for the use of the body. Dworkin argues that surrogacy, like prostitution, allows society to equate women with sex and nothing more.

Negative Psychological consequences  Identity crisis & Incest on Surrogate child :

• Surrogate children  may face emotional or psychological difficulties and take to rejection of a life  after learning about the birthing process, may be confused about his/ her biological identity .
• Surrogacy might also lead to incest of a sort. As the surrogate child might marry another offspring of the surrogate mother.