You know, this is definitely a controversial issue and I can see both sides to the argument. It's interesting to me however that no one yet has perhaps thought to question the act of surrogacy itself. I mean not to step on anyone's toes by saying this and nor am I some hippy, left-leaning, liberal naturalist but I do believe that surrogacy is a practice best avoided by humans because it is a corruption of nature that no amount of politics can organize and control. Now wait, I'll explain why.
We also have the right to say no when it comes to our body. I might go to donate blood, but if half way through i say no- then they MUST stop, thats my body, my decision. If i decide to use my body to trial medication and want to stop and say no- I have that right.
If you withdraw rights from your own body- where do you draw the line? You do not sign away rights to your body. The only thing they could do from breaking a contract is refuse payment- they cannot, and should not, ever- be able to force anybody to do anything with their own body against their will.
LoraLoo raises a very good point. At what point is the line drawn with regards to ownership? This is an issue of personal autonomy and assigned rights. Yes, the surrogate signed a contract and in doing so essentially 'signed her body away' to the biological parents. However does this forgo any personal autonomy that the woman has because she signed a legal document, agreeing to termination, if it was so desired by the parents? It's a very difficult situation, because it defies nature. That wouldn't even be putting it correctly. It distorts and attempts to override nature, but we can't do that no matter how much legal precedence we set in such an arrangement. Broken down, essentially:
... Two adults who otherwise could not conceive by natural means 'hire' a surrogate mother. Their donated sperm and egg, fertilized, is implanted into the surrogates body.
... This fertilized egg belongs to the biological parents. The body belongs to the surrogate. By accepting the fertilized egg into her body, she claims no rights to it as it does not belong to her, but her body is still her body and she still has personal autonomy. Legal contract or no legal contract. Therefore in my eyes, and using my rationale, she becomes the sole proprietor of the fertilized egg.
... Biological parents wish to terminate the pregnancy. Surrogate, although not the rightful 'owner' of the fetus, still overrides the rights of the fetus as the fetus itself relies on her body for life support. She signed a contract agreeing to termination should it be willed by the biological parents, yes. However if she had a change of heart (or mind, or both) and grew attached to the growing fetus (which does happen, whether it is her child biologically or not as this is a physiological process of pregnancy) at what point does her personal autonomy end?
... If the surrogate refuses to abort the fetus, then she has breached her contract but she is still within her rights of personal autonomy to make decisions that affect her own body. Her body is host to the biological parents' child, but without her body the fetus would not have survived, so her body still trumps the rights of the fetus.
... So then what is the next due course of action? If she refused to abort she pays a fine, serves jail time, but never at any point can any authority force a woman to abort 'her' baby as this violates her rights to personal autonomy. That is the most important factor here.
While I disagree with her choice to not terminate the pregnancy (it is cruel to be aware of such physical abnormalities with a fetus and force it to live knowing it will suffer, IMO) I do not agree with those that say she did the wrong thing by going against the biological parents' wishes to terminate. Legal contracts provide a service to us and what we assign to them is their worth. But no legal contract written by any man or woman could ever, or should ever, take precedence over personal autonomy. The surrogate was pregnant, it was her choice to terminate or not - not the bio parents'. And thus why we should avoid surrogacy altogether.
It's a similar argument to that of the question raised by the film
'A Clockwork Orange' where the main character of that movie subjects his body to a dangerous experiment in exchange for freedom from prison. He signed away his rights to his personal autonomy by agreeing to take the experiment, but the purpose of the film was to ask the viewer whether or not any one person or governing institution with power over the individual should be able to 'force' said individual into a situation of mental or physical harm against their will. Whether the experiment was for a greater good or evil it is argued, should not matter. When we watch the movie the audience finds themselves feeling sympathetic for the main character (despite all his deliberate flaws and monstrous nature) because he had his personal autonomy robbed of him, even though he agreed to it himself.
As long as we value personal autonomy bio parents essentially give up rights to their child as soon as it becomes a symbiotic entity with the mother. Not the
genetic mother. The relationship between mother and child is a symbiotic one, fervently grounded in biology, not litigation. A contract is a piece of paper. What we assign to that piece of paper does not trump the rights of the mother. That's my opinion, anyway.
