Fertility Tourism and the Ethics of Intercountry Surrogacy

Intercountry surrogacy: an opportunity for economic improvement in the lives of the poor or a new, exploitative practice that exerts patriarchal control over women's bodies? This is one of the fundamental questions that speaker Molly Shanley explored in her topic, "Fertility Tourism and the Ethics of Intercountry Surrogacy: Renting Wombs in the Global Marketplace". For her, intercountry surrogacy has many positive aspects to it, including that the woman is able to exercise personal agency in that she has control over the decision to do with her body what she chooses. In this case, she chooses to "rent" out her womb in the hopes of improving her economic situation. Since many surrogates are chosen from the Global South to become surrogates for people of the Global North, there is this opportunity for them to make a substantial amount of money that has the potential to change their lives. This is also helpful for many families and individuals of the Global North that cannot afford, or are unwilling to pay the much higher costs for surrogacy within their own countries. Shanley admits that more work needs to be done to study whether or not these surrogates' lives are actually improved after they have performed these services. As of right now, it is unclear.