Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

THE MORALITY OF ADOPTING FROZEN EMBRYOS 125
fertilized through insemination with the sperm of a man other
than her husband. She carries the pregnancy with a pledge to surrender
the child once it is born to the party who commissioned or
made the agreement for the pregnancy. 19
In both of these scenarios, an essential element of an action
that can be said to constitute surrogacy is the making of “a
pledge to surrender the child once it is born to the party who
commissioned or made the agreement for the pregnancy.”
Whether or not the woman is genetically related to the embryo
does not determine whether the act is surrogacy. Nor, according
to this definition, does the woman’s intent or lack thereof to
raise the child. 20 Rather, the defining characteristic of becoming
a surrogate mother is entering into a prior agreement or contract
with another person or couple to gestate a baby for them
and to give it to them upon birth. Thus, surrogate motherhood
can be defined as the willingness to be impregnated (through
e.g. sexual intercourse, artificial insemination, or embryo transfer)
after having pledged in advance to give up that child to a
particular person or persons.
Though at present we tend to associate surrogacy with an
agreement to gestate a baby in return for a sizable payment,
such a payment merely signals a particularly problematic kind
of surrogacy, rather than defining what constitutes surrogacy in
itself. It is equally a case of surrogacy when a woman’s sister or
mother or daughter or friend offers to gestate an embryo on her
behalf without a fee. The woman who functions as a surrogate
for a fee simply exacerbates the wrong that is done. 21
19 DV, II, A, 3.
20 It would seem that this allows for the possibility of “embryo fostering,”
which is arguably not suttogacy, though it has certain similarities. An example of
this is provided by and defended by Germain Grisez (1997). In the example he
gives, a young single woman proposes to gestate an embryo to “rescue it” but
does not intend to permanently raise the child, planning rather to give the child
up for adoption. See Grisez (1997), 239-244. For a critique of Grisez’s “rescue”
view, see JOHN BERKMAN, “Surrogacy? Rescue? Adoption? Gestating the Embryos
of Others and Catholic Morality,” unpublished paper.
21 That the exchange of a fee may make a wrong action worse, is of
course not unique to surrogacy. For example, with prior agreement for a payment,
what was fornication or adultery becomes prostitution.