Note: The ethical judgments on this page refer exclusively to the action — never to the person who performs it. Every person possesses inalienable dignity, regardless of what they do or have done. Cf. Note on ethical judgments (German).
The assumption of the pregnancy and birth of a child by a woman (surrogate) on behalf of other persons (intended parents), with the contractual obligation to surrender the child after birth. Surrogacy is an intrinsically evil act and a form of instrumentalization, because it makes the child the object of a contract and thereby a commodity, and degrades the surrogate in her bodiliness to a means of production.
Surrogacy, Money, and Power
In commercial surrogacy, money and power combine into a particularly grave form of oblivion of the person: the economic power of the intended parents makes it possible to purchase another woman’s pregnancy — the child is ordered, handed over, and paid for. The dignity of the person — both of the surrogate and of the child — is subjected to the calculus of money. Altruistic surrogacy likewise remains problematic, because it splits the bodily-personal unity of motherhood, even when no money changes hands.
Surrogacy can also be understood as technology in the broader sense: a systematic procedure that subjects the beginning of personal life to the conditions of a contract, thereby violating the personalist norm.
Ontological relations:
- has subclass: Altruistic Surrogacy
- has subclass: Gestational Surrogacy
- has subclass: Commercial Surrogacy
- is subclass of: Practical Oblivion of the Person
- violates: Personalist Norm
- fragments: Motherhood
- is subclass of: Instrumentalization
- is subclass of: Intrinsically Evil Act
- has subclass: Traditional Surrogacy
Altruistic Surrogacy
Altruistic surrogacy is surrogacy without remuneration, often within the family or among friends. The motive of compassion can mitigate subjective culpability. Yet the objective objections remain: the fragmentation of motherhood, the contractual surrender of the child, and the instrumentalization of the bodiliness of the woman who carries the child. The altruistic motivation does not alter the object of the action (fontes moralitatis) and therefore does not render it morally good (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 200 ff.).
The ontology classifies altruistic surrogacy as a subclass of surrogacy and marks it as mutually exclusive with commercial surrogacy — these are different forms of the same intrinsically evil act.
Ontological classification:
- superordinate concept: Surrogacy
- mutually exclusive with: Commercial Surrogacy
Gestational Surrogacy
A form of surrogacy in which the surrogate carries the child without being genetically related to it. The egg cell comes from the intended mother or a donor. Gestational motherhood is thereby separated from genetic motherhood — a fragmentation that contradicts the personal unity of the parent-child relationship.
Commercial Surrogacy
Commercial surrogacy is surrogacy for remuneration. In addition to the fundamental objections against every form of surrogacy, the explicit commercialization of the human body and of the child is added here. The surrogate becomes a paid service provider. The child becomes an ordered commodity. Especially in countries of great poverty, this leads to the exploitation of economically disadvantaged women — an intensification of instrumentalization.
The ontology infers: commercial surrogacy turns the violation of the personalist norm into a business model. It is mutually exclusive with altruistic surrogacy, since the commercial motive qualitatively alters the action. In the outcome of the moral evaluation, however, the result is negative in both cases.
Ontological classification:
- superordinate concept: Surrogacy
- mutually exclusive with: Altruistic Surrogacy
Surrogacy Contract
The surrogacy contract is a contractual agreement by which a woman undertakes to carry a child and, after birth, to hand it over to the commissioning parties (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 298 ff.).
From the standpoint of the ontology of the person, this contract constitutes a grave form of instrumentalization. The child becomes the object of a contract — it is, as it were, ordered, handed over, and received like a thing. This fundamentally contradicts the dignity of the person, for the person is not an object that may be disposed of by contract.
The surrogate is likewise instrumentalized. Her bodily motherhood — a profoundly personal reality — is reduced to a contractual service. The personalist norm forbids ever using a person merely as a means. The surrogacy contract violates this norm in a twofold respect.
Traditional Surrogacy
Traditional surrogacy is that form of surrogacy in which the surrogate is at the same time the genetic mother of the child — her own egg cell is used. Here the fragmentation of motherhood is especially grave: the woman who is at once genetic and gestational mother contractually surrenders her own child.
The ontology marks traditional surrogacy as mutually exclusive with gestational surrogacy, in which the surrogate has no genetic relation to the child. In both cases the personal unity of motherhood is fragmented by a contract — a violation of the personalist norm.
Ontological classification:
- superordinate concept: Surrogacy
- mutually exclusive with: Gestational Surrogacy
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Kant, Immanuel (1785): Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Academy Edition vol. IV, p. 429 (the formula of humanity as an end in itself: never to use the person merely as a means).
- Aquinas, Thomas: Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 18, a. 1–4 (fontes moralitatis: the object, circumstances, and end of the action).
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997), no. 2376 (surrogacy as a violation of the dignity of the child and of marriage).