'Whole Body Gestational Donation' - Unconscious Surrogacy

[NancyDrawed]

Via Helen Joyce's twitter:

Unconscious Surrogacy?

"Women in a permanent vegetative state or who are declared brain-dead could be used, [philosophy professor Anna Smajdor] suggested, as unconscious surrogate mothers for people who, as the paper states, either “wish to have children but cannot, or prefer not to, gestate"

Takes exploiting women to a whole new depth.

She's a bio ethicist - it's literally her job to think about these things and draw out the ethical implications . I went to her twitter and she's posted a link to this explanatory paper.

www.progress.org.uk/beyond-the-sound-and-fury-whole-body-gestational-donation/

"My view as an ethicist is that the prospect of whole-body gestational donation is deeply disturbing. Yet discomfort alone is not enough to show that something is unethical. If it were, then many medical advances would be stopped in their tracks. So how can we sift between the layers of discomfort and repugnance in order to make clear-sighted distinctions between what is, and is not, ethically acceptable in this context?"

Blogs on this subject here from Paula Boddington

stopsurrogacynowuk.org/2023/02/06/whole-body-gestational-donation-for-surrogacy-creating-new-life-from-death-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-guest-post-from-paula-boddington-long-read/

And from Jennifer Lahl, a leading voice against surrogacy.

www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/who-owns-the-human-body

I've just signed up to the NHS organ donor register but I have told DH that if any reproductive material is taken from me it must be donated to a female person only. (Bearing in mind that we have seen speculation that in future male persons may be able to have uteri inserted into them so they can become pregnant/bear children. Yeah, yeah, it's pie in the sky ATM but if there's money to be made...)

She's a bio ethicist - it's literally her job to think about these things and draw out the ethical implications . I went to her twitter and she's posted a link to this explanatory paper

Yes, thank you for pointing this out.

In the Dune books, there is a society that reproduces this way, as well as producing genetic replicas. The women have, I believe, been extensively modified.

It's a horrible idea. I can picture it happening now though, which I couldn't years ago. There have been so many changes around things like surrogacy, and also medically assisted suicide, that impact how people think about life and what it means to be a human person with rights, what the right to life means, what can be commercialized, commercialization as a main element of autonomy, etc. It seems like the bar keeps getting lower for what counts as a worthwhile life and it's a very dangerous thing, IMO.