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I’ve been musing about altruistic surrogacy–or at least what I am calling altruistic surrogacy–for some time.  (This is part of a much larger project that could take you all the way back to the start of this blog.  Or you could just go back to the beginning of the discussion of surrogacy generally.  Or of course you can just start here)

I’ve come to realize that there is a good deal I prefer about altruistic surrogacy–a system where the surrogate is recognized as a mother of the child and therefore retains the right to change her mind.   Indeed, when I began writing I think I was inclined to simply be “anti-surrogacy,” but as I’ve worked through various points, I’ve persuaded myself that surrogacy is useful if problematic.  Altruistic surrogacy, at least for me, addresses the most problematic features of surrogacy.    Perhaps tomorrow I will summarize the ways in which altruistic surrogacy seems to address these problems.  Today I want to think about what seems to me to be the main objection to altruistic surrogacy:  That would be that it is entirely impractical and won’t work.  If it is the case that altruistic surrogacy really won’t work, then it can hardly be offered as a solution to the surrogacy dilemma. 

The assertion that altruistic surrogacy won’t (or can’t) work is, I think, grounded in the idea that a system in which women can change their minds about turning over the child is so unreliable as to be unusable.    I’ve said before that it may well be true for most people planning to use surrogacy as intended parents that they would prefer a system where the surrogates are bound.   But the fact that many if not most prospective intended parents have that preference isn’t really conclusive here.   I’m sure many if not most would also prefer a system where surrogacy was inexpensive.   I’m sure some people would decide not to use surrogacy if it the surrogate was not bound, but after all, some people do not (or can not) use surrogacy now.   So the fact that some people would like it less and, as a result, some people might decide not to use it doesn’t make it unworkable.

There are reasons to think that the majority–even the vast majority–of surrogates would turn the child over.   What reasons?   Well, there’s the experience in the UK, where it seems to work that way.   And there’s what we hear from surrogates–see, for example, the comments from a surrogate following this post.   This, and other comments like it you can find in the Newsweek article and other recent media offerings, suggest  that many surrogates do not think of themselves as mothers, do not wish to be mothers, and also understand themselves to be obliged to the intended parent or parents.

There is no way to know exactly why surrogates generally turn over the children now–whether it is because the law compels them to do so or whether it is because they feel obliged to honor the agreement they have made.  You can find a lot of information at most surrogacy centers about how carefully they screen surrogates, attempting to identify women who will be able to comply with the obligations they undertake.    Perhaps there is some reason to suspect the source–after all, these sites are marketing efforts.   But it makes sense to me both that they’d genuinely try to do that and also that it would be possible to do that.   It seems to me that most of the surrogates whose words I’ve read are quite self-aware.

I suppose in the end I’d like to say we can do this on a trust-based model.  That is, we can expect carefully chosen surrogates to honor their commitments.   (It’s far more appealing to me to rely on honor than on legal coercion.)  At bottom, I think the contention that altruistic surrogacy “just cannot work’ is little more than a statement of distrust.