FEMINIST UNDERSTANDINGS OF SURROGACY

Abstract

Like prostitution, pornography, and the like, and surrogate maternity is a question which divides feminist movement. Liberal feminism, supporting surrogate motherhood, emphasizes, above all, the question of choice. According to this concept, a woman can choose whether she will give birth to a child, and in accordance with the regulation of surrogacy, she may receive a certain amount of money for this (Imrie, Jadva, 2014). On the other hand, radical and part of left-oriented feminists take into account not only choices, but also the material conditions that condition and/or limit them. Starting from this assumption, as well as from the general criticism of the control and appropriation of women’s reproducibility and sexuality, they see in the surrogate motherhood another type of exploitation of the female body. Since the mother surrogate is usually from the lowest class, it is precisely in this practice that the actions of the capitalist patriarchy and the double oppression of women from marginalized groups are evident. Because of this, Renata Klein, a feminist who opposes the surrogacy, calls this a reproductive prostitution (Klein, 2017). However, this is not a universal view of all left-wing feminists – some of them see surrogacy as a work that needs to be regulated by law, and a surrogate mother as a worker whose rights need to be promoted (Lewis, 2019).

My basic thesis is that surrogacy is not only a basic exploitative practice that mostly affects women from the poorest and most marginalized social groups, but also that it is related to other forms of appropriation and control of female reproduction, and endangering the right to bodily autonomy through the creation of legislative frameworks which, reduced to the level of social reality, means a proprietary relationship to the female body. In other words, surrogacy is seen in the context of strengthening rightwing forces in Europe and the world that abolish and/or restrict already won women’s rights, such as the right to abortion, which also invoke similar values advocated by feminists who support surrogacy, such as the right to biological parenthood or the right of embryo.