A new feminist campaign has been set up against the commodification of babies and women's wombs for rent - Stop Surrogacy Now. Looks like an important cause to get behind. From Stop Surrogacy Now's home page:
Surrogacy is the social practice where a woman is ‘used’ for her body, her fertility and reproductive capacity to grow and birth a baby without the intention of being a mother to that child and giving that baby away, or ‘gifting’ that child to ‘Intended Parents’.
We see Surrogacy is the sale of a child where any profit is made. No amount of pretending its ‘gestational service’ changes the reality. Commissioning parents want a baby not a service, the baby is the ‘end product’.
Surrogacy as a practice developed from the demand of wealthy, infertile people to have exclusive parenthood of a biological child.
- exploiting women as baby making machines does not advance women’s rights
- The child’s right to have a relationship with all its parents are disregarded
- It perpetuates that same old structural injustice where poor/ vulnerable women are used for the benefit of the wealthy – the power imbalance in surrogacy is a key argument
‘Using a surrogate’ means replacing the only mother a child has ever known.
“People who seek a surrogate have a very specific desire…it is not only a desire to raise a child, but also a demand that the mother be absent.” ~ Kajsa Ekis Ekman “Being and Being Bought”
This is the website:
stopsurrogacynowuk.org/2021/04/22/welcome-to-stop-surrogacy-now-uk/