In the Baby M case, the contracted surrogate mother, who was also the egg donor, tried to claim parenthood from the intended parents; in the Baby Cotton case, social services intervened, taking custody from the newborn’s British surrogate and blocking the claims of the intended U.S.-based parents. Judgments in both cases upheld the rights of the intended parents on the grounds that it was in the babies’ best interests.
However, fast-paced advances in reproductive technology and continuing ethical debates made it extremely difficult for policy makers to find regulatory solutions that could balance protecting women from exploitation with supporting women’s rights over their own bodily labour. In response, some Western countries have banned the practice outright; others, such as Canada, have made marketing such services illegal, while only permitting reimbursement rather than compensation to the surrogates.
This high demand for surrogates has led to the “outsourcing” of surrogacy to countries around the world with looser laws. As University of Bern Professor Carolin Schurr“Just as other kinds of services have been outsourced to low-wage countries to reduce costs within a global commodity chain, reproductive labor is outsourced in global fertility chains to women living in deprived socioeconomic conditions.
Nothing but a banker war