{"id":12183,"date":"2021-05-06T11:35:03","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T06:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=12183"},"modified":"2025-06-17T18:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T12:47:07","slug":"surrogacy-sociological-understanding-implications-in-indian-societies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/surrogacy-sociological-understanding-implications-in-indian-societies\/","title":{"rendered":"SURROGACY: SOCIOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING &#038; IMPLICATIONS IN INDIAN SOCIETIES"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>SURROGACY: SOCIOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING &amp; IMPLICATIONS IN INDIAN SOCIETIES<\/h1>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">Relevance:<\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Sociology:<\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3><strong>Population policy and family planning.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<h3><strong>Emerging issues: ageing, sex ratios, child and infant mortality, reproductive health.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>G.S paper I: Society &amp; social issues<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3><strong>Women Empowerment<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.insightsonindia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Surrogacy.jpg\" alt=\"Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2020 - INSIGHTSIAS\" \/><\/p>\n<p>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\u00a0 sphere of family by introducing\u00a0 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\u00a0 concept of\u00a0 parentage.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.slidesharecdn.com\/ss_thumbnails\/surrogatemotherfacts-160301091943-thumbnail-4.jpg?cb=1456823996\" alt=\"Surrogate mother facts\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"background-color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Thus surrogacy challenges the most fundamental or primary unit of society family , the institution of marriage , social concept of parentage , relationships.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Surrogacy makes motherhood a commercial service available on rent or\u00a0 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 \u00a0social stigma.<\/li>\n<li>Surrogacy as a form of reproductive technology has reshaped the role of gender and reinforce\u00a0 the stereotyping against women of the breeders or baby makers.<\/li>\n<li>Besides, Surrogacy by its very nature presents a form of polarization in society by permitting the use of poor and third world women\u2019s wombs to produce children for economically advantaged European American couples.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"background-color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Hence , Surrogacy brings about a new area of social legal inquiry\u00a0 due to the peculiar inherent nexus or the relation between law and social issues ,\u00a0 changes in one reflects the change in other. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>While the pattern of family formation , parentage as social institutions\u00a0 changes or redefined\u00a0 (by surrogacy ) consequently law must change in order to incorporate and regulate and control such changes.<\/li>\n<li>Law in order to operate and function in society\u00a0 must respect , acknowledge the social institutions and vice versa.<\/li>\n<li>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\u00a0 within the wedlock is not always necessary as children could be born by a third party falling outside the union of marriage.<\/li>\n<li>A biological tie, marital unison is no longer a defining factor either in the foundation of family, marriage as prime social institution.<\/li>\n<li>Accordingly, surrogacy has brought significant changes in the social institution of family, marriage and social construction of motherhood.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; background-color: #ffff00;\"><strong>Some of the significant changes are discussed below.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff;\"><mark><strong><u>Surrogacy on family\u00a0 structure &amp;\u00a0 composition :<\/u><\/strong><\/mark><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/en-media.thebetterindia.com\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Untitled-design-46.jpg?compress=true&amp;quality=90&amp;w=480&amp;dpr=2.6\" alt=\"What Is the Future of Surrogacy in India? Discussing All Sides of the Issue.\" width=\"493\" height=\"258\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cSurrogacy by opening up the \u2018family\u2019 to single women and queer couples has changed the constitution of family\u201d\u00a0surrogacy has changed the established heterosexual-parented\u00a0 family as single parent or\u00a0 homosexual family.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><u>Surrogacy changes traditional function of Family , Marriage\u00a0 &amp; Mother child Relationship :<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/racolblegal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/surrogacy.jpg\" alt=\"NEED FOR CHANGE OF SURROGACY LAWS IN INDIA | RACOLB LEGAL\" width=\"490\" height=\"421\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Marriage and Parenthood are God-ordained relationships. Surrogacy introduces a third party interference with a natural process thereby violation of God\u2019s will.<\/li>\n<li>Many religious groups deem surrogacy as \u201cmechanical adultery\u201d for such inclusion.<\/li>\n<li>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\u00a0 or may be partially related with either of the couple or may not be related to both.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"background-color: #ccffff;\"><strong><u>Surrogacy challenges the social construction of family and motherhood. \u201cIf a woman is willing to gestate a child in order to give it away to others this itself is un natural of motherhood\u201d!\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li>Further commercial Surrogacy disrupts the parent child relation and enables buying and selling of parental rights under surrogacy contract for monetary payment.<\/li>\n<li>Surrogacy differentiates between bearing and rearing children as a role of mother.<\/li>\n<li>Surrogacy causes shunning of all physical and emotional psychological relationship between women and her foetus.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><u>Surrogacy reinforces the Gender Stereo type :<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/shannalamanedpr2111\/_\/rsrc\/1429928636957\/gender-roles\/gender-roles-and-stereotypes\/traditional_gender_stereotypes__by_thearchosaurking-d5e5ctd.png?height=1219&amp;width=1334\" alt=\"Gender Roles and Stereotypes - Parenting 101\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As per a leading feminist Debra Satz in her work why something\u2019s should not be for sale states that commercial surrogacy reinforces negative gender stereotype by viewing women as \u201c\u2018baby machines\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>The landmark American case of\u00a0<em>Johnson vs Calvert<\/em>represents this societal perception of women as \u201d class of \u201cbreeder.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><u>Surrogacy imposes Patriarchy :<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>Gena Corea, in her work \u201cThe Mother Machine\u201d opines that \u201csurrogacy is part of a patriarchal conspiracy to control women\u2019s bodies and reproduction.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><u>Dehumanizing and Commercializing motherhood :<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Surrogacy exploits a women\u2019s bodies or reproductive labour as commodity or as any other labour offered for sale or hire in the market.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cSuch treatment of a woman\u2019s 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 \u2018incubator available for payment of a fee\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>The case of \u2018Baby M\u2019 of New Jersey could be cited as an example where \u2018Surrogate mothers are degraded to baby-making machines which requires that the surrogate mother deny all her feelings\u2019 of motherhood and makes her no more \u2018than a contract labourer with neither any emotion or any legal rights over the child.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><u>Surrogacy causes polarization class divide \u00a0in society :<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/user-images.strikinglycdn.com\/res\/hrscywv4p\/image\/upload\/c_limit,fl_lossy,h_9000,w_1200,f_auto,q_auto\/1646405\/584573_244416.png\" alt=\"Surrogacy process in India: Types of surrogacy and its implementation\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"background-color: #ccffff;\"><strong><u>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 \u201cBlack Gestators served as surrogate mothers and wet nurse for the white master\u2019s children. <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li>At present in India poor Indian women agree to commercial surrogates for rich foreign intending couples visiting India .<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><u>Surrogacy implicates social stigma &amp; Prostitution :<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>commercial surrogacy entails stigma on surrogate mothers ,she is equated with a\u00a0 prostitute as she is making money by making use of her private body organ.<\/li>\n<li>Surrogate mothers are cast upon a stigma and denied social acceptance. \u00a0<span style=\"background-color: #ccffff;\"><strong><u>Surrogacy is a form of slavery or prostitution in which the surrogate is exploited through the enticements of money. <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><u>Negative Psychological consequences\u00a0 Identity crisis &amp; Incest on Surrogate child :<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Surrogate children\u00a0 may face emotional or psychological difficulties and take to rejection of a life\u00a0 after learning about the birthing process, may be confused about his\/ her biological identity .<\/li>\n<li>Surrogacy might also lead to incest of a sort. As the surrogate child might marry another offspring of the surrogate mother.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\"><span class=\"amp-wp-303d451\" data-amp-original-style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">To Read more topics<\/span><span class=\"amp-wp-303d451\" data-amp-original-style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"amp-wp-303d451\" data-amp-original-style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;\">visit:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?amp=1\">www.triumphias.com\/blogs<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SURROGACY: SOCIOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING &amp; IMPLICATIONS IN INDIAN SOCIETIES Relevance: Sociology: Population policy and family planning. Emerging issues: ageing, sex ratios,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1033,7,844,1038,13,114,1030,1029,1028,1032,1026,115,116,1034,1027,1031],"tags":[3366,3153,3815,3062,3813,3812,2045,3791,3814,3816,1514,3152,1499,3789,2419,540,3796,320],"class_list":["post-12183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-optional-sociology","category-general-studies-i","category-gs","category-gs-mains","category-society-and-social-issues","category-sociology-optional","category-sociology-civils","category-sociology-ias","category-sociology-mains","category-sociology-mains-ias","category-sociology-optional-sociology-optional","category-sociology-optional-paper-i","category-sociology-optional-paper-ii","category-sociology-scoring-optional","category-sociology-upsc","category-sociology-upsc-mains","tag-aging","tag-family-planning","tag-family-structure","tag-g-s-paper-i","tag-gender-stereotype","tag-indian-societies","tag-infant-mortality","tag-marriage","tag-motherhood","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-patriarchy","tag-population-policy","tag-reproductive-health","tag-sex-ratios","tag-social-issues","tag-sociology","tag-surrogacy","tag-women-empowerment"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30910,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12183\/revisions\/30910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}