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Surrogates as risk or surrogates at risk? The contradictory constitution of surrogates’ bodies in transnational surrogacy

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Abstract

When parents who cannot carry their own fetus to term travel to another country to pay a surrogate to carry their child to term, they encounter myriad structural risks. However, given that such risks exist beyond the control of individuals, intended parents and those who work in the surrogacy industry focus their attention instead on surrogates’ bodies and behavior as a means to manage potential risk. Using primary and secondary data from Ukraine and Mexico, we trace the ways in which expectations of risk and acceptable risk management practices are transposed onto the global South: the surrogate and her body become the site upon which expert intervention is concentrated in order to manage risk. This discursive move both renders the risks borne by the surrogate invisible and conceals the structural marginalization of surrogates upon which transnational surrogacy is dependent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, King’s University College at UWO, 266 Epworth Ave, London, ON, N6A 2M3, Canada

    Kristin Lozanski

  2. Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, B349O, Calgary, AB, T3E 6K6, Canada

    Irene Shankar

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  2. Irene Shankar
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Correspondence to Kristin Lozanski.

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Lozanski, K., Shankar, I. Surrogates as risk or surrogates at risk? The contradictory constitution of surrogates’ bodies in transnational surrogacy. Soc Theory Health 17, 40–56 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-018-0066-5

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