Page 79 - PCC04

Specific Consent Worries
(i.e. about payment)
• Payment (above a certain level) will encourage women, including those who would not otherwise (i.e. without pay) have done so, to become surrogates.
• Paid surrogacy would attract mostly very poor women who would in effect be forced by their dire economic circumstances and lack of acceptable alternatives to become surrogates
– This may be especially problematic when transnational surrogacy makes use of women in developing countries
Transnational Paid Surrogacy, Poverty, and Consent: lack of acceptable alternatives
• “Lack of acceptable alternatives, on its own (when not caused by coercion or another consent‐invalidating behaviour) is not sufficient to generate a serious consent problem. The decisive counter‐example here is consent to essential life‐saving medical treatment. If my surgeon says ‘if I don’t operate then I’m Exploitation in International Paid Surrogacy Arrangements afraid you’ll die within 24 hours’, the starkness of that choice does not mean that I cannot validly consent. What is more, it would be more than a little odd to say that operation should not go ahead in such circumstances because of the irresistibility of the surgeon’s offer to operate. For it is irresistible precisely because it is so good for me!” (Wilkinson 2016, pp.133‐4)
Page 73 of 88
PRECONGRESS COURSE 04 I BARCELONA, SPAIN – 1 JULY 2018 79