Surrogacy, Contract and Labor. Normative Issues Surrounding the Right to Self-Ownership and to Property in the Body

Abstract

This analysis aims to address key normative and critical issues concerning the right to surrogacy as it relates to self-ownership and bodily property rights. Surrogacy remains a contentious choice, expanding possibilities for women as both workers and mothers. Additionally, issues of gender, self-ownership, and exploitation, which were central topics for feminists in the 1980s and 1990s, remain highly relevant today. Specifically, in the first part, I will examine the limitations of the liberal property model that views individuals as property-holders with the right to do as they please with their own bodies and body parts. This issue arises within the current ethical-legal framework that questions whether people can legitimately be regarded as owners of their bodies and parts. In this context, in the second part I will argue that in a liberal democratic society, the right to surrogacy is better understood as a contractual right and a right to freedom of occupational choice, rather than being tied to the right to self-ownership and property rights.