For the issue group on surrogacy motherhood at the EWL General Assembly 2013
Useful arguments against surrogacy motherhood
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Surrogacy is a trade with women’s bodies and children, and an exploitation of the woman’s
body and her reproductive organs. Surrogacy is a threat to women’s basic human rights and
bodily integrity.
Allowing surrogacy is to make use of women’s bodies and reproductive organs for the
enjoyment of someone else, to the detriment of the woman herself.
Altruistic surrogacy relies on the goodwill of other women without any remuneration. Their
bodies are used to fulfill someone else’s dreams.
There is no way of knowing if money or bribes are involved in altruistic surrogacy, and how
social pressure and the relation of power between the parties might play a part in the
decision.
Countries that have legalized altruistic surrogacy have not experienced a decrease of
commercial surrogacy. In fact, there are studies pointing at the opposite.
In the majority of the cases of commercial surrogacy, the purchasers come from western
countries and the surrogates from third world or developing countries. There is an unequal
power balance between purchasers and surrogate mothers.
It is not a demonstration of free will to sell your own body if your socially vulnerable position
does not give you any other options.
The effects of pregnancy, both physical and psychological, are impossible to predict. A
pregnancy is never risk free.
The demands purchasers can make on the surrogate mother regarding her diet, exercise and
sexual activity violates her integrity and human rights.
Contractual freedom and the right to enter into an agreement with another individual is not
absolute, and never has been. Surrogacy motherhood is a contract of temporary serfdom,
where the surrogate mother waives her rights to bodily integrity during the pregnancy, and
therefore the contract is to be considered invalid.
The basis of a contract is the possibility to enforce its fulfillment. The judicial system cannot
and should not enforce the realization of a contract where a woman waives her human
rights.
Having a feminist approach to surrogacy means rejecting the idea that women can be used
as containers and their reproductive capabilities can be bought. The right to bodily integrity
is a right which should not be able to be negotiated by any form of contract.
The right of the paying buyers should not be premiered whilst women’s rights are
negotiated. It is not a human right to have children.
The Swedish Women’s Lobby
Norrtullsgatan 45, 113 45 Stockholm, +468-33 52 47
info@sverigeskvinnolobby.se / www.sverigeskvinnolobby.se