CALL FOR PAPERS: Workshop on Global Surrogacy and Reproductive Markets

Carleton University/University of Ottawa, February 6-8, 2014

International surrogacy consists in a transactional arrangement wherein a first world couple or individual seeking to build a family contracts the gestational services of a developing world woman. The case of international surrogacy raises a number of important questions in the fields of applied ethics, feminist philosophy, political philosophy and global justice. To begin with, the surrogacy arrangement raises the purported spectre of commodification, be it of the surrogate’s body or of the infant. A similar concern is raised with respect to the contribution made to many such exchanges by a third party egg ‘donor.’ Many critics have argued that while altruistic surrogacy and egg donation should be permitted, their financial remuneration should not be, lest the human body, or the physical capacities intimately related to personhood itself, be treated as valuable solely in monetary terms. This workshop will investigate if this analysis indeed captures the real moral controversy of surrogacy and egg-selling in an international context, or whether there are antecedent, or even more pressing moral concerns.

One such concern is whether or not surrogacy and egg-selling can in fact be viewed as a means of enhancing female autonomy. If the surrogate chooses the role willingly because its compensation will enable her to achieve goals she has reason to value, surrogacy may well be morally valuable insofar as it allows women to address some part of the vulnerability they experience under conditions of global poverty. However, there may be serious reason to worry about the genuine capacity of vulnerable women to give autonomous consent, especially in the face of potentially coercive enticements. There is also a worry as to whether the remuneration is fair and the labour conditions adequate. The latter two concerns give us reason to question the potential for exploitation in international surrogacy and egg-selling arrangements, insofar as they involve a contractual agreement between parties with asymmetric bargaining power. Finally, moral concern must also be raised with respect to the exploitative role played by those who broker such arrangements. What is the appropriate moral perspective to take on those who ‘live off the avails’ of global surrogacy and egg selling, and to what extent do these individuals and institutions bear moral responsibility for each of the previous concerns?

Analysing surrogacy from a global justice perspective can hopefully enable us to clarify the moral problems it carries with respect to commodification, exploitation, and vulnerability. Our aim is that this workshop should yield fruitful cross-disciplinary discourse on this important and timely topic. We invite abstracts (of 250 words) for papers that address any of three interrelated philosophical themes: first, whether reproductive markets involve the commodification of goods of intrinsic moral worth; second, whether these types of transactions impede women’s autonomy or agency; and third, whether the two previous concerns take a different form against the backdrop of global injustice, so much so perhaps as to engender the need for an altogether different philosophical treatment of reproductive markets in a global context.  We are also interested in abstracts that address harms to children,  particular those who are the products of global markets in reproduction.

Deadline for abstract submission: October 14^th 2013
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Notification of acceptance: November 1^st 2013

Submissions should be sent to:

christine [dot] straehle [at] uottawa [dot] ca
or
vida [dot] panitch [at] carleton [dot ]ca

If you are looking to be inspired or uplifted by today’s post….Well, let’s just say these two stories might not be what you are seeking.  Instead of offering an analysis, I will just say this:

With respect to the twenty-six cent fiasco:  While this might be explained away as an “administrative error”, or a “policy decision,” or whatever other kind of excuse-making by the medical insurers (and their political supporters) in the United States, it nevertheless stands as nothing less than a  crime perpetrated  in slow motion, in bright daylight, on paper.  And as a nation that bears witness to it, and millions of other death-by-insurance disasters, Americans  are out of excuses.  The politicians currently threatening to shut down the government rather than allow the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to be fully enacted have only the bogey-man of creeping socialism and “death panels” to peddle — and their audiences ought not be buying.  For those who are not yet certain which way to lean, it is long past time to choose sides.  I must turn to Hannah Arendt yet again, who reminds us that “[t]he sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

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What is happening politically in Russia right now is a general disaster in the making.  What is happening to the Russian LGBT communities right now is a specific, growing, and imminent catastrophe that requires immediate and decisive response from the world community.  And from the community of bioethicists, broadly construed.  So, fellow bioethicists:  Thoughts?  Ideas?  Comments?  Please share.  We have seen this before.  We probably do not have much time.