Using ‘brain stem dead’ women to incubate babies is objectification at its worst
Matt Lamb
An immoral proposal to use “brain stem dead” women to act as incubators for babies should be rejected for the ethical problems it presents. The idea of “whole body gestational donations” goes back decades, but it has recently been resurrected in an essay by University of Oslo ethicist Anna Smajdor, which has prompted further media coverage and debate.
“I suggest if we are happy to accept organ donation in general, the issues raised by whole-body gestational donation are differences of degree rather than substantive new concerns,” Smajdor argued.
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But the donation of organs to another person is different than using a woman’s body for surrogacy, regardless of consent.
“Patients who are brain stem dead cannot recover,” Smajdor explained, to differentiate them from someone in a persistent vegetative state. The distinction does not matter. The whole surrogacy industry turns the beautiful gift of pregnancy into a commercial transaction, and the use of unconscious women adds further moral problems.
First, surrogacy separates childbearing from the procreative act. Whole-body gestational donation takes that a step further and uses a woman who is unconscious to carry a baby for someone else. This further turns those who are brain stem dead into commodities by treating some of them as valuable and worth sustaining because of the service they can provide while treating those who are not surrogates as less valuable. Decisions about end-of-life care should be made based on religious and moral beliefs with a view toward protecting the dignity of the human person, not on their utility to gestate.
It is disingenuous to argue that because it is a “donation” it is not commercialized. Surrogacy is currently a billion-dollar industry; it follows that other forms of surrogacy would also require payment, either to the woman who signs up for it ahead of time or to her family.
Second, women’s bodies should not be commercialized or treated as simple vessels available for creating children.
Finally, surrogacy poses problems when there are medical risks to the pregnancy. Oftentimes surrogacy contracts allow or even require abortions in cases where the pregnancy is dangerous, even if the carrier objects. What will happen when someone is carrying a baby, there could be medical risks from the pregnancy, and the parents want an abortion? The carrier is not able to share her opinion.
Surrogacy continues to compound moral problems. Sometimes academics propose wild ideas for shock value or to see what kind of reactions they engender. Other times it is done to continue to push the edges of what a society will tolerate, such as when Princeton professor Peter Singer makes arguments in favor of infanticide or bestiality.
But the proposal to allow women to sign away their bodies in the event of becoming “brain stem dead” is an idea that should be stomped out and rejected without exception.
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Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.