Week 2 Post 3-Surrogacy

  I found it very interesting how in these court cases that were about specific incidences the court was using them to make boarder statements about the principles of surrogacy contracts and the selling of that service. After looking at all the arguments I believe that in principle the selling of surrogacy is ethical because of bodily autonomy, and because I believe people have the free will to make decisions for themselves. I do also agree though with some of the points brought up against the selling off surrogacy that humans could be seen as a commodity, because I know there is already a legacy of that, particularly in America. So I have conflicting feelings about selling surrogacy, but I think that is common with introducing money into many biotechnologies. I also am somewhat disappointed, but not surprised that the course uses very gender-normative language, only using the terms woman and man within the gender binary. I was also surprised that the courts making these decisions found they had the authority to make sweeping generalizations about what society values and does not value.

   One question I have is are there any cases of surrogacy where the people involved do not exist within the tradition gender binary and are not cisgendered? I also would like to know if there are any ethical objections to volunteer surrogacy, where the surrogate does not get paid. Another question I have is what are some differences in ethical objections, based on whether the surrogacy is traditional or gestational?