Is Surrogacy Anti-Feminist?
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Lily Collins announced the birth of her first child in an Instagram post a few weeks ago, but rather than congratulations and well-wishes, the Emily in Paris star was met with a torrent of hateful comments. Why? Because Collins’ baby was born via surrogacy.
Surrogacy is a widely recognised fertility treatment, in which one woman carries a child for another individual or couple, and it can have a positively life-changing effect for all involved. Collins is the latest in a long line of A-Listers who have opted for surrogacy, including Elton John, Kim Kardashian, Priyanka Chopra and more. However, whilst the number of babies born via surrogacy is rising, criticism of the practice is too.
The comments on Collins’ post call surrogacy ‘baby buying’, and many go as far as to label it ‘anti-feminist’. This criticism is not new, and feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and Gina Corea have been fighting against surrogacy since its popularisation in the 1980s. Radical feminism takes particular issue with commercial surrogacy, when the surrogate gets paid, since there is an argument that this creates a system in which the rich can rent out the wombs of poorer women. It is clear where this criticism comes from in the context of celebrities choosing surrogacy, it is a broad assumption that only poor women agree to be surrogates. In the UK, surrogates come from all types of economic background. In the US, screening processes ensure that the potential surrogate is financially stable prior to engaging with the process.
It is not only commercial surrogacy that has been labelled ‘anti-feminist’. Only altruistic surrogacy is legalised in the UK, meaning that the surrogate cannot be paid more than ‘reasonable expenses’. This has also been condemned though, as cultural feminists believe that one woman should not be expected or pressured to take on the risks and burden of pregnancy for another simply because she has a working womb, although assuming that women can so easily be coerced into surrogacy overlooks the role of female agency here. Nevertheless, there are real fears of a global usage of surrogacy leading us down the path towards a ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ reality.
In reality, the practice can be seen as a gift: from someone who historically has easier, more enjoyable births or pregnancies, to another - a woman who cannot give birth without risking her own life or a gay couple who wish for a genetically-related child. This is the way that many surrogates perceive it themselves, seeing it as a ‘redistributive transfer’ from those with the ability to bear a child to those without. Many surrogates already have their own children or alternatively have no desire to raise children and feel that their fertility is wasted. In these cases, to label the practice ‘anti-feminist’ is to go against the feelings and perspectives of the most important party, the surrogates themselves. In addition, many surrogates see their contribution as an autonomous choice. Calling surrogacy anti-feminist because it involves the transfer of a female burden from one woman to another is surely over-paternalistic, especially since this is frequently done in other ways such as babysitting or cleaning without anyone calling those actions exploitative.
Surrogates can be at risk of exploitation, especially in countries like India where regulation and protection are lacking. Yet, labelling surrogacy itself ‘anti-feminist’ is reductive, casting a paternalistic veil over what can be a celebration of female generosity and autonomy. With successful regulation, surrogacy can be an act of feminism—women supporting women simply because they can.