Document Type
Essay
Publication Date
Spring 2023
Abstract
Surrogacy is an arrangement where a woman agrees to carry a baby on behalf of a couple, typically because they cannot have the baby on their own. This has especially become an increasingly common option for many same-sex couples to have a child. However, many countries have discriminative laws set in place that prohibit surrogates from conceiving a child for same-sex couples. As a result of this, different surrogate agencies have found loopholes to go around these laws. In the Radiolab podcast episode titled “Birthstory '', an Israeli couple who were forbade from hiring a surrogate in their own country, shared their experience with finding a surrogate agency that hired Indian women in Nepal to bypass each country’s own prohibitive surrogacy laws. During this same podcast, questions arose surrounding the moral grounds of this process. It was debated whether or not surrogacy was simply another form of exploitation of women who are already subjected to very difficult situations.
Recommended Citation
Reyes, Emma, "Surrogacy as a Means of Survival" (2023). Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics. 37.
https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/ethics_essay/37
Comments
Honorable mention prize winner.