Surrogacy Should be Banned in All States

An article titled “Baby M and the Question of Surrogate Motherhood,” discusses the oldest court case involving surrogacy. In this case, the surrogate mother, Mary Beth Whitehead, decided that she did not want to give away the baby she had carried the past nine months. The couple that had hired Whitehead as a surrogate went to court to get their baby back and their case prevailed. The author of the article, Clyde Haberman seems to be unbiased and takes no stance on the issue. He does however bring up that although it is banned in some states, there is no national policy in place regarding surrogacy. I am going to argue that it would be morally correct to ban surrogacy completely.
Emmanuel Kant’s categorical imperative says “act so that you treat humanity, whether your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only,” (Parks 12). Surrogacy uses a woman’s body as a means to have a baby. Surrogacy in theory, takes a woman’s body, harms it through gestation and childbirth, and then lets the woman continue on after being harmed. A surrogate goes through pain and suffering and gets nothing because the baby she created is taken away from her. Surrogacy then is morally wrong because it uses a woman as a means.
Surrogates are compensated for their work, but there are a lot of moral issues that come with the process. First off, surrogacy in America is very expensive and not everyone can afford it. It is a violation of inequality to give some couples opportunities that are not universal. Another issue that arises is picking a surrogate mother. People with more money can afford to hire prettier or smarter surrogates. Paying more for brains or beauty can be seen as selfish or bad parenting, because it is paying for...

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..., who otherwise may not be able to have children on their own, it is morally wrong. It uses a woman’s body as a machine and as a means, and women are bound to agree to surrogacy for the wrong reasons. Surrogacy is morally wrong because of the emotional trauma it can bring to the surrogate after the birth of the child. With all of these negative aspects, it is clear that other options should be considered, options such as adoptions, which have more benefits than losses.

Works Cited

Haberman, Clyde. "Baby M and the Question of Surrogate Motherhood." The New York Times. The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Steinbock, Bonnie. "Payment for Egg Donation and Surrogacy." Bioethics in a Changing World. By Jennifer A. Parks and Victoria S. Wike. 1st ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. 400-09. Print.
We Can’t Forget Kant. Chapter 12. Sakai reading.