Contract Children by Daniela Danna

Author:Daniela Danna
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: surrogacy
ISBN: 9783838267807
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2015-07-03T04:30:00+00:00

Are they workers?

Even if at least some surrogate mothers in rich countries perceive and talk about what they are doing as work (though of a special and generous kind), they are never officially defined as workers even where contracts are legal. So the legal answer to the question of whether a surrogate mother is working is "no." But what the surrogate mother goes through has been labeled by critics of this practice as the ultimate expropriation of workers' products, the ultimate alienation. What if the birth mother is really just a worker who, like all the working class, is socially and legally forced to give away the product of her labor in the ultimate act of worker's alienation from the product of her efforts? Aren't pregnancy and delivery a part of the unpaid work that women perform to fulfill the social identity that a patriarchal and capitalist society has forced upon them in order to exploit their capacities, so that a rightful compensation should be claimed? In this case, the pregnancy work should not be any different if it is for one's own family or for another—though activists for wages for housework never endorsed producing babies for others as a job, nor singled out pregnancy in particular among the different socially reproductive activities of women for which a salary is due. Need surrogate mothers be looked upon as workers, and consequently the legal contract—as some authors have argued—be admitted to protect them?

The money to be gained is clearly the decisive factor for entering such an agreement in poor countries, or for poor people: "I have a girl who wants to start a shop in her village, another who wants to learn to cut hair and put up a beauty salon, another who wants to go to university," says a Mexican mediator, who employs women from Colombia.[133] But also in Europe migrant women find work as surrogates. A Bolivian woman relates:

"I came to Spain because I couldn't find work in my country. But even here I can't earn enough money to send back to support my family. I want to become a surrogate mother so I can return quicker to my home with enough money to look after my daughter." She plans to meet prospective couples in Spain before travelling back to Bolivia with them for impregnation at a private clinic as such practices are forbidden under Spain's Assisted Reproduction law. She will then stay in her country and give birth to the baby. (Govan 2006)

In Israel surrogacy is openly a job:

The Israeli surrogates in my study shared many of the same stated motivations as US and British surrogates, such as love of pregnancy, empathy for childless couples, and the desire to make a unique contribution, but they were also unapologetic, honest, and upfront about money being their primary goal in pursuing surrogacy. They expressed diverse economic goals that ranged from the immediate, such as paying off huge debts and providing for their children's basic needs, to the less immediate, such as saving money for the future.

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