1. The woman is not treated as a person, but as an object

Subrogated maternity, involves the use of women as a reproduction machine and is regulated through a contract. In this contract, in which the child, who is in the womb of that woman, is also seen as a purely commercial object. Nevertheless, a son and a woman can never be a product or a thing, as if they were objects of an assignment.

Therefore, one of the problems of all surrogacy is that it involves the instrumentalization and depersonalization of the pregnant mother’s body, ignoring the basic distinction between people and things. People, obviously including their body (the woman’s belly), cannot be traded. Thus, the freedom of individuals to establish contracts for mutual benefit has limits, especially when the reason for the contract is the same human being (there is no respect for the person without respect for their body dimension), so that the act of «selling» or offering the body involves a serious social and human problem.

Therefore, maternity by surrogacy or rental gestation is, unequivocally, a new form of exploitation of women. This is contradictory or divergent to their dignity. For using their body, and consequently their person⁹ as a negotiable object, or a human incubator, or a simple receptacle of a gestation in order to satisfy the wishes of others, thus: «Subrogated motherhood does not respect the dignity of the mother carrier, since it presupposes a dualistic conception of it that disintegrates: on one hand, situates their feelings, their emotions, her reason and her autonomy and, on the other, her corporal dimension. From this perspective, the body of the carrier woman is a “something”, an object available and susceptible of any transaction and is reduced to playing a purely instrumental role».¹⁰

On the other hand, it does not exist a «right to procreation», a «right to the child» that justifies a pretended individual right to surrogate motherhood. It is true that the desire of sterile couples should be heard by society, but not at any price. Desires, however praiseworthy they may be, are desires and should not be considered as rights, especially if this implies injury to the dignity and rights of other subjects involved, especially of the poorest or most vulnerable women and children.

Therefore, there is no right «to become a father» by virtue of the will of heterosexuals, nor of homosexuals, nor of individuals who have decided to remain single. A person cannot dispose of another one as a merchandise, for there is not right whatsoever that allows it. In any case, a right assists children to have parents. The desires of paternity are limited to the human dignity of the pregnant woman and the baby and the protection of their fundamental rights.

Our society has made human rights its basic pillars. In such a way, those citizens must be protected so that their actions in the field of these rights can be respected. However, this protection also extends to protecting the individual, even when confronted with himself, when he intends to violate his own human rights, such as not allowing someone to surrender voluntarily as a slave, or to be financially compensated for the donation of an organ, although decisions have been made autonomously.

In other words, not everything we want acquires a status of right. In order to satisfy the reproductive wish of some people to be fathers or mothers, (which is not a right), and that they cannot achieve it in a naturally way, there exists adoption (to facilitate it, it is necessary to prevent the adoption to be made through an undercover market. There is a need that the cost should not be a burden, also to accelerate as much as possible the procedures and that the deadlines do not dilate in time), which avoids the market of people and helps children who have no resources or family. Definitely, postnatal adoption prevails the right of children already born to be adopted to get a family. That is to say, the wellbeing of the child prevails over the desire of adults to be parents, since the end of postnatal adoption is to favor the wellbeing of the child, and, on the other hand, that of surrogate motherhood is to produce a child to satisfy the desire of adults.

In addition, personal autonomy does not mean accepting any decision as valid. In this sense, it is necessary to consider whether the freedom of decision of the great majority of women signatories of surrogacy contracts, who are in a situation of special socioeconomic vulnerability, is not vitiated by these vital circumstances, which generates an authentic reproductive exploitation.

On the other hand, surrogate motherhood assumes the rupture of the affective bond of the mother, which usually is generated with the child during her pregnancy. Besides the obligation of having to deliver it when giving birth, reason why the mother is psychologically pressured to assume from the beginning that the Baby is not hers and she cannot establish any contact with him.¹¹

Ultimately, surrogate motherhood reifies women, by using their bodies for a purpose other than their own good, by treating her as a commodity, as something that can be bought and sold, which is incompatible with the dignity of women and their your own rights. It involves the purchase and sale of people, which is intended to be legalized under the heading of «right to exercise paternity» and «freedom to decide on one’s own body». In the bottom line, pregnant women are used in this business as a mere factory that makes babies for others. Neither the payers nor the intermediaries care about the woman’s situation or the bond that as a mother is generated during the nine months that the baby is in her womb.

2. The baby-child also used as a commodity

Subrogated motherhood, also converts the child conceived in vitro (from the gametes of the principal parents, from the ovum of the pregnant woman inseminated with the husband’s sperm, or from the donor’s gametes) into a commercial product with quality control. Nevertheless, a baby is a human being, not an object of consumption to hide needs of those who own him and that can be acquired through a purchase.

Indeed, with surrogate motherhood, the baby becomes a mere commercial product to satisfy the desire of adults to be parents or an adult to be a father or mother, and as such they can demand quality standards and their return in case of not meeting them.¹²

If the wish of the parents were admitted, the baby would be denied the consideration of absolute good in itself and by itself. It would become an available object, something instrumentalizable, that is, it would be reified.

For all these reasons, in the rental gestation the baby is treated as an object of sale and in many contracts it is established that the surrogate mother must return the money if she fails to give birth or the baby does not have the established health conditions. This accentuates the insecurity that affects both the surrogate mother and the child. Therefore, commercial surrogacy implies commodification of the filiation, since this will depend on the conclusion of a contract with a strong economic content.

On the other hand, the child remains in a very vulnerable position in surrogate motherhood, given that her situation depends on the clauses established in such contract, which does not guarantee, at all, the protection of her interests and rights. Then, the rental gestation highlights the nonsense, which is to consider the baby as a right that impels to possess it in any way.

Likewise, surrogate motherhood prevents the child from knowing its biological origin and identity.¹³ Such is the case, in which up to six adults can claim the paternity of each baby born of a «surrogate mother» as in the following cases. The genetic or biological mother (donor of the ovules), the pregnant mother (the «surrogate mother»), the woman who has ordered the baby, the genetic father (the sperm donor), the husband or partner of the pregnant mother (who has the presumption of paternity), and the man who has ordered the baby.

In the end, the child becomes a market product that is ordered, bought and sold. The principle’s parents goal is not the good of the pregnant woman, nor the child or the best interests of the child, but to satisfy the desire of adults to be parents at any price.

3. The serious psychological consequences that remain for children and mothers

Modern medicine has provided evidence that demonstrates the decisive impact of the prenatal period for the subsequent development of the human being and the links that are created between the pregnant mother and the child during pregnancy.¹⁴ Link that, unfortunately, is broken after the birth of the baby.

This natural maternal bond is reflected in the physiology of the mother’s brain during pregnancy. The mother adapts her body to this new situation through changes in her neuroendocrine system, under the influence of pregnancy hormones.¹⁵

It can be assumed that a pregnancy considered as a business and the relationship with a child who is renounced in advance and considered as a product and a source of income, may affect the child’s psychological development, especially when he knows why he has been conceived, gestated and born.

However, surrogacy also psychologically affects the mother who has gestated the baby, given birth to her and has to separate from her. These ties of the mother are biological, therefore, unrelated to the intentions for which that pregnancy is promoted so they also affect surrogate altruistic motherhood. In addition, it has recently been found that the genome of the mother can influence, modifying, the genome of the child.¹⁶ This would add one more reason for the links between the two. Therefore, if additionally it were known that the genomic modifications of the child could be transmitted to his offspring, the genome of the surrogate mother would still be present, in some way, in the offspring of the pregnant child.

Then, the bonds between mother and baby are not only affective or psychological, but also biological, specifically, physiological and genomic.

4. The economic business of surrogate motherhood

The use of surrogate mothers has become a global business that moves millions of euros per year. At this time, surrogacy, on average, costs about € 90,000.¹⁷

Every year this business moves hundreds of millions of euros or dollars. In fact, surrogacy is a commercial activity in which business agencies profit from the suffering of infertile parents and the vulnerability of women, especially those who live in disadvantaged situations, developing a whole business of women’s selection and of future children.

That is right; the business agencies select the candidate as «rent belly». They offer through the Internet a catalog of candidates (who meet the necessary requirements) willing to rent their belly and with the intention of submitting to the demands, conditions¹⁸ or imposed clauses, which they will have to compulsorily follow during pregnancy.

The objective, like that of any business, is that the production is good and that the pregnant woman fulfills her part of the contract, so that the product is just what was hired. To this end, such contract begins with the selection processes of the surrogate mothers, which include endless tests and personal requirements to guarantee that «quality» of the ovules and the belly that will lead to the future child. Therefore, we are talking about the absolute control that is exercised over the pregnant mother, both physically and psychically, in determining the conditions that may be required to be an eligible candidate, which is a form of reification of the surrogate mother, an intrusion into her privacy.

Thus, also, these business agencies have programs that include services and expenses. Namely, the financial compensation to the surrogate mother, services of artificial insemination, pregnancy planning service in the area of residence of the surrogate mother. Moreover a complete medical examination, feeding for the period of stay in the center and interpreter service for the entire duration of the program. A preparation and signing of the agreement between the parents and the biological mother, legal services, declaration of the surrogate mother of the absence of lawsuits against the biological parents, assistance in the formalization and obtaining the birth certificate of the child.

However, one can conclude by saying that motherhood by nonaltruistic subrogation is a very lucrative business, based on the commodification of women’s bodies. A use and exploitation of the most vulnerable women, for the benefit of individuals or couples or rich. This is so, that many women from underdeveloped or developing countries have made surrogacy a life practice, because the economic benefits they obtain are much higher than the wages that are perceived in those countries.

Nor can we overlook the multitude of unforeseen or complicated situations that may appear, such as the possibility of a pregnancy at high risk to the health of the pregnant mother.¹⁹

5. Legal disadvantages

Until now, for the law, it was unquestionable that the woman who conceives and gives birth to a child was the true and only mother. However, it is a fact that, in surrogate motherhood or rental gestation, commercial or altruistic, the maternal function can be divided among several women, the biological mother, the one who created and gave birth to the child, and the one who will raise as its only mother, with a genetic link or not, and sometimes an eventual donor of oocytes.

Another legal drawback is that the fate of babies born due to surrogacy may be uncertain, due to the breach of contract and the anonymity of their genetic origin.

From the legal point of view, surrogate motherhood is allowed only in some countries around the world. Therefore, many people, who resort to this procedure to have children, must do so abroad.

Conclusion

The basic issue, from the ethical point of view, to the objections about surrogate motherhood does not lie in the occasional occurrence of medical malpractice. Nor that there are companies or clinics that can traffic with babies (which is a criminal offense), but with surrogate motherhood, the baby and the pregnant woman are discriminated and reified by commodifying and instrumentalizing their bodies.

Therefore, the rental gestation, in any of its modalities, commercial or altruistic, supposes a use of women, because it treats the pregnant woman and the child as means at the service of the fulfillment of the desires of the clients, and not as ends in themselves, but as means at the service of satisfying the desire of others.

With the admission of surrogate motherhood, it is evident that the dignity of women and motherhood are not seen as unavailable and worthy of protection, but that woman can be used to satisfy a desire.

That being addressed, babies are required to have quality guidelines and are deprived of fundamental rights, apart from their «self-understanding» of the child in the future. In this sense, the rental gestation leads to abortions or «returns» of «imperfect» children or the abandonment of the baby purchased at the end of the couple’s relationship before their birth.

In addition, the baby, a human being, is not available, but is used as a means to fulfill a desire for another or others. Therefore, the child has no value in himself, but only if he is wanted, received, and desired.

The most effective way to dissuade potential parents from going to rented maternity and thus reduce the business and exploitation that this entails is the prohibition to non-biological parents to enroll children who have obtained them by national and international subrogation in the Civil Registry, that is, the woman, who has given birth, would be the only mother.

Finally, on the issue of surrogate motherhood, there are several questions to ask who will really benefit from this practice? Perhaps, the business agencies? Who is harmed in the rental gestation? What happens? With the surrogate women and the babies?

You cannot accept a practice that aims to be a father or mother at any «price», without thinking about the biological mother and the child and trading with him and the women’s bodies.

A world where money and individual desire prevails over all is a world destined to corruption and inequality.

Therefore, for these reasons all decisions and measures related to the gestation of rent, commercial or altruistic, in my opinion, should, be directed to prohibit this practice.