Gestational surrogacy: Transnational procreative practice and work for women in contemporary society

Abstract

Gestational surrogacy is spreading across the world and it is increasingly accepted as an available way to make babies: the procreative process, the procurement of gametes, the recruitment of women and the relationships between the various subjects are administered by international agencies. At the same time there are signs of resistance such as transnational mobilizations calling for the universal ban of a practice that is viewed as a form of commodification of women and children. The author introduces the articles included in this monograph issue, which is an original contribution to a sociological understanding of an unprecedented social practice with peculiar characteristics: the presence of a new social actor, the surrogate woman, and the intentional separation of the newborn from the woman he or she identifies as their mother (although they are not genetically related). Because of these characteristics, surrogacy’s impact on the social role and subjective experience of motherhood, its imaginary and narrative, as well as on the status of the child, is not comparable to other forms of assisted procreation and family formation.