Surrogate non-motherhood: Israeli and US surrogates speak about kinship and parenthood

Abstract

ABSTRACTDrawing on a comparison of two ethnographic research projects on surrogacy in the United States and Israel, this paper explores surrogates' views about motherhood and parenthood, relationships and relatedness. The paper challenges three myths of surrogacy: that surrogates bond with the babies they carry for intended parents, that it is immoral not to acknowledge the surrogates' maternity, and that surrogacy upsets the moral order of society by dehumanizing and commodifying reproduction. Contrasting the similarities and differences in the voices of surrogates from these studies, the authors argue that surrogates draw on ideas about technology, genetics and intent in order to explain that they do not bond with the child because they are not its mother. This is followed by an exploration of surrogates' definitions of what constitutes parenthood, suggesting that in both contexts, surrogates draw clear boundaries between their own family and that of the intended parents. Finally, it is suggested that surrogates expect a relationship, or a bond, to develop with the intended parents and view their contribution as exceptional moral work which involves nurturing, caring, friendship and solidarity. The paper concludes that for surrogates in the USA and in Israel, maternity, bonding and kin-ties are not automatic outcomes of pregnancy, but a choice. Surrogates in both contexts hold that bonding with other people's children as if they were one's own is wrong while bonding with their couple and creating ‘fictive kin’ ties with them is the logical outcome of the intense and intimate process of collaborative baby-making.