On Surrogacy - by Jenn Damelio

Anderson argues that contractual surrogate motherhood degrades and exploits women by turning their labor into a commodity. She produces three arguments for three separate ways she feels women are violated by these contracts. First, she thinks that women are forced into alienated labor by being required to suppress their emotions towards the fetus. Secondly, women are degraded because the market’s values are put in place of her own regarding choices about her pregnancy. Thirdly, Anderson argues that women are exploited because gestation is a labor of love which cannot be compensated monetarily; it is a different type of good which cannot be bought. I would like to offer opposition to her first argument.

Anderson thinks that there are social norms associated with undergoing a pregnancy. These norms and expectations are conducive to a woman forming bonds with the fetus in her womb. The surrogacy contract, however, attempts to override these norms. It does not allow a woman to form these ties with the fetus. Therefore, women are being forced into alienated labor. However, there are other types of work where emotions may be tied to a final product, and we do not try to stop people from these types of production. Take, for example, another form of work where emotions may be strongly tied to a final product – the production of art. It seems that because art is so often a form of personal expression, there are a lot of emotions that go into the making of, say, a painting. However, oftentimes painters can be contracted to produce a piece of art, thereby creating a something to which he may have emotional ties. However, after the piece of art is completed, the artist is still expected to relinquish the painting to the contractors. Therefore, the objection of having to set aside emotional ties does not explain why there is special concern for women being alienated from her labor.

There seem to be ways that Anderson can amend her argument, though. For example, if Anderson added that as a society we may have special concerns for women simply because they may be more vulnerable to coercion, this specific objection to surrogacy may still hold. There may not be as much concern for painters as a group which has been historically vulnerable to mistreatment. Our society may feel that women hold certain other claims which make this worry a specific concern. Anderson, also, may simply feel that the emotions generated between an artist and a work of art are not as strong as the ties expected to form between a gestating mother and the fetus. However, I think this is an objection she should take into consideration when laying out her argument.