Surrogate Mothers Must Not be Allowed to Profit
Infertility affects an estimated 6.1 million people in the United States, or 10% of the reproductive age population (1). For many couples, infertility carries a stigma with serious personal and social ramifications. Infertile couples face social rejection by friends and family with children and must also come to terms with the loss of lifelong dreams of rearing children. The psychological trauma associated with infertility has created a great demand for a solution, and the medical industry has responded with eagerness. Infertile couples spend millions of dollars on medical treatments, including in vitro fertilization, surrogate pregnancy, egg donation and a myriad of infertility drugs now on the market. Because of the extreme emotional suffering many infertile couples experience, these couples are particularly susceptible to exploitation by people - or an entire industry - purporting to have a solution for their problem. It is therefore important to question the ethics associated with reproductive technologies that try to provide "solutions" for infertile couples. While all of the treatments for infertility lead to ethical dilemmas, I will focus on the dilemma of surrogate pregnancy. Although surrogacy offers a possible solution to desperate infertile couples, the rate of success is low and the price tag is very high. Of even more concern are the costs not reflected in the monetary price. These costs include the possible exploitation of the couple and/or the potential surrogate, as well as the legal quandaries, both at the time of the contract and in the future, to which this "solution" gives birth.
Before tackling the problems of surrogacy,...
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1. American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Frequently Asked Questions About Infertility. http://www.asrm.com/Patients/faqs.html (September 17, 2001).
2. Sweet, Craig R. Surrogacy: Practical Medical Aspects. The American Surrogacy Center, Inc. (TASC), Marietta, GA. http://www.surrogacy.com/medres/article/aspects.html (September 17, 2001).
3. Shanley, Mary Lyndon. 1995. "Surrogate Mothering" and Women's Freedom: A Critique of Contracts for Human Reproduction. In: Elshtain, Jean Bethke and J. Timothy Cloyd, Politics and the Human Body: Assault on Diginity. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
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Dostoevsky does not like all of Raskolnokv though. He hates his aloofness. Dostoevsky cannot stand anti-socialism and believes that people should be together and not dislike “meeting at any time'; with anyone. Constantly Raskolnokov alienates himself from all his friends and family to go alone about his way, which ends up getting him into trouble because of his radical thinking, like his theory that some people can transcend the law because of some extraordinary powers. The trouble that Raskolnokov gets into is Fyodor’s way of showing that continually parting yourself from society is unhealthy for a person and that they need other human contact to be complete.
1.) Dr. Schwarz, Stephen. The Moral Questions of Abortion. Sophia Institute Press, Columbus Ohio 1990
This essay examines and critiques Judith Jarvis Thomson’s, A Defense of Abortion (1971). Thomson sets out to show that the foetus does not have a right to the mother’s body and that it would not be unjust to perform an abortion when the mother’s life is not threatened. For the sake of the argument, Thomson adopts the conservative view that the foetus is a person from the moment of conception. The conservative argument asserts that every person has a right to life. The foetus has a right to life.
In such poor living conditions, those that the slums of Russia has to offer, the characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment1 struggle, living day to day. Raskolnikov, the protagonist, experiences multiple layers of suffering (the thought of his murder causes him greater suffering than does his poverty) as does Sonia and Katerina Ivanovna (1). Through these characters as well as Porfiry Petrovitch, Dostoevsky wants the reader to understand that suffering is the cost of happiness and he uses it to ultimately obliterate Raskolnikov’s theory of an ubermensch which allows him to experience infinite love.
Beauty is becoming a belief that every woman is worshiped. Moreover, aesthetic technologies are growing up. Everyone is chasing trends to get more beautiful and fashion despite knowing the dangers latent in it. People, who desired to become more beautiful such as enhance appearance, improve aesthetic appeal, symmetry, and proportion, come to the aesthetic methods which are considered cosmetic surgery. Because “Cosmetic surgery is practiced by doctors from a variety of medical fields, including plastic surgeons.” (Cosmetic Surgery Vs. Plastic Surgery), many people have misunderstanding about cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery are the same. Technically, “cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery are closely related specialties, but they are not the same.”
The pro-life feminist believes that the autonomy of one’s body does not generalize if a fetus is present. In the case study involving Bob and Linda Thompson, a married couple with two children who end up pregnant after the failure of an IUD, the pro-life husband is thrilled by the news and informs the children, whereas the wife wants an immediate abortion of the four-month-old fetus in order to continue her career. Callahan would agree with the husband and believe Linda should continue the pregnancy as the right to control her body does not give her the right to control the body of her child. This fetus is immature and powerless, and though it is not yet a person, it is developing into one. Callahan believes that “women can never achieve the fulfillment of feminist goals in a society permissive toward abortion,” (Callahan 161) and disagrees with the views of philosophers Harrison and Petchesky. Furthermore, though Linda believes that it is her body and she has control over what she does with it, Callahan disagrees as another body will result from this 266-day pregnancy, and the process is genetically ordered. The abortion of the fetus is not like an organ donation as the development of the fetus is a continuing process, and Callahan finds it hard to differentiate the point after conception where the immature life
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2.1 million married couples experience troubles with infertility. Infertility is defined as trying for over a year and not becoming pregnant for women under 35 and trying for six months for women over 35. The cause of the infertility is a male factor one third of the instances, female another third, ten percent of the cause is a combination of both male and female factors and the remaining twenty percent is not apparent. In vitro fertilization is a process that tries to eliminate the problems inherent in the mother and father. It involves an egg is fer...
[9] Shanley, M.L, Surrogate Mothering and Women's Freedom: A Critique of Contracts for Human Reproduction, (Politics and the Human Body) editors-Elshtain, J.B, and Cloyd J.T1995, Vanderbitt University Press, Tennessee back
...e open to all women at any point of pregnancy, and that the woman reserves the right as a fully conscious member of the moral community to choose to carry the child or not. She argues that fetuses are not persons or members of the moral community because they don’t fulfill the five qualities of personhood she has fashioned. Warren’s arguments are valid, mostly sound, and cover just about all aspects of the overall topic. However much she was inconsistent on the topic of infanticide, her overall writing was well done and consistent. Warren rejects emotional appeal in a very Vulcan like manner; devout to reason and logic and in doing so has created a well-written paper based solely on this rational mindset.
Arguments against commercial surrogacy typically revolve around the idea that surrogacy is a form of child-selling. Critics believe that commercial surrogacy violates both women’s and children’s rights. In addition, by making surrogacy contracts legally enforceable, courts will follow the contract rather than choose what is best for the child. However, in her article “Surrogate Mothering: Exploring Empowerment” Laura Pudry is not convinced by these arguments.
Commercial surrogacy commodifies children because by paying the surrogate mother to give up her child, they treat the child as an object of exchange or commodity that can be bought and sold. As any business transaction, the parents give money for the exchange of an object, the child. The parents get their desired child and the mother gets the money, but what about what thee child think about this event? The parents and surrogate mother’s action were done with self-interest. It could be argued that they wanted the best for the child. However, the first priority in the intentional procreation of the child was not the welfare of the child but rather to give it up to the parents in exchange of money. Additionally, women’s labor is commodified because the surrogate mother treats her parental rights as it was a property right not as a trust. In other words, the decisions taken concerning the child are not done primarily for the benefit of the child. The act of the mother relenting her parental rights is done for a monetary price. She disposes of her parental rights, which are to be managed for the welfare of the owner, as if they were property right, which are to be handled for personal
Frame, T. R. "Reproductive Rights." Children on Demand: The Ethics of Defying Nature. Coogee, N.S.W.: UNSW, 2008. N. pag. Print.
Raskolnikov's article, "On Crime," is vital to the understanding of his beliefs. This article also has a profound effect on Crime and Punishment as a whole, the subject matter being one of the main themes of the novel. The idea of the "extraordinary man" is referred to literally throughout the book, but also notable is the subconscious effect the idea has on Raskolnikov. Sometimes Raskolnikov is not even aware of this influence. It is important to note originality, or the ability to "utter a new word," as a defining characteristic of the extraordinary man. Therefore, we must take into account the presence of similar ideas, those of Pisarev, Nietzsche, and nihilism, as these might bring to light the possibility that Raskolnikov is not original, a possibility that haunts him throughout the novel.