| Author(s) | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | |
| Publication Year |
Whose Child Is This?
“Surrogacy,” Authority, and Responsibility
From: Surrogacy in Canada
$2.10
In Chapter 1, Christine Overall, while accepting that the practice of surrogacy may be here to stay, considers the troubling moral issues that arise with respect to women who act as surrogates and the resulting children. She argues that, in any surrogacy arrangement, paid or unpaid, the resulting baby belongs to the woman who gestated him rather than to the individual(s) who commission the pregnancy. As a result, Overall argues that the woman who gives birth is the mother — she is responsible for the baby and has the authority to make decisions about the baby at the time of birth and at least shortly thereafter. She raises four arguments in defence of her claim: the baby is the outcome of the pregnant woman’s labour; the child’s identity is founded upon his or her connection to the woman who gestated him; in other cases of gestation and delivery, the birthing woman is the person who has responsibility for and authority over the baby; and in almost every other case (in the West) where an infant is born and does not stay with the person who gestated him or her, the transfer of authority and responsibility is through a formal process, from the birthing woman to the new parent(s). Overall also raises potential counter-arguments to her claim and offers several replies. Based on this analysis, she makes several recommendations regarding the formation of social policy arising from recognizing the gestating woman as the mother of the infant.
Contributors
Christine Overall
Christine Overall is a professor emerita of philosophy and holds a University Research Chair at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. She is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has received two research awards from the Royal Society. She held the Humphrey Professorship in Feminist Philosophy at the University of Waterloo (2003), the Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University (2006–2007), and the Visiting Professorship in Canadian Studies at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan (2011–2012). Her research is in the areas of feminist philosophy, applied philosophy, and philosophy of religion. She has published over a hundred articles and book chapters, many of which have been republished. She is the author of six books, including Why Have Children: The Ethical Debate (MIT Press, 2012) and the editor of five books, including Pets and People: The Ethics of Our Relationships with Companion Animals (Oxford University Press, 2017).
