A Study On Surrogacy From The Feminist Perspectives

In the twenty first century,developments of science and technology and their applications to the biomedical fields have generated countless breakthroughs.Meanwhile,they resulted in some new issues which traditional ethic theories can not deal with.Bioethics research usually lags behind the explosive growth in technological developments.Surrogacy,as an important assisted reproductive technology,helps married couples who are unable to conceive naturally to have their own child.This technology has gained increasing attention around the world.However,surrogacy can pose challenges to laws and regulations,traditional morality and social ethics.The three main bioethical issues with surrogacy include(1)violation of personal dignity,(2)impact on family value and ethics and(3)severe societal ethical issues as a result of abuse in commercial surrogacy.With unique perspectives,feminists have been very active in the research field of bioethics.Feminist perspectives provide new and diverse approaches to study ethics of surrogacy.This thesis analyzes pros and cons of surrogacy from the feminist perspectives on bioethics,and points out the divergence derived from the diversity of theories and different emphasis of attention to women's interests within feminism.The reasonability of surrogacy can be elaborated from perspectives of women's autonomous rights and justice in reproduction.Based on Rawls' difference principle,this thesis elaborates that surrogacy is beneficial to change infertile couples' weak position and to finally achieve substantive equality;and then defends the supportive feminist arguments for legal surrogacy.According to people's positive attitude to surrogacy and substantial demand of surrogate technology,the policy on surrogacy in China could be adjusted to permit the narrow gestational surrogacy in the future.