A Mother's Story/Surrogate Motherhood/Recreating Motherhood:
Flynn, Eileen P
Down the primrose path Mother's Storytells of a different kind of triangle, one made up of two naive parents and one savvy entrepreneur. Mary Beth Whitehead thought that she could do a good deed...
...William Stern thought that he could make his wish come true by arranging to secure a child grown from his seed...
...A woman at one time may be willing to make the lifetime commitment required to nurture the child in her womb, and at another time she may not...
...It tells us much about the experience of being a surrogate, but it is not self-critical or balanced enough to convince us that the author is telling the whole truth...
...The most enlightening aspect of Shannon's cultural analysis is his examination of how pronatalism affects women...
...However, if society is going to do its job well, it is imperative that it take a critical look at the surrogacy issue, at what men do to women when they ask them to "incubate a child grown from their seed...
...Mary Beth Whitehead learned the hard way...
...And, in the sub-jectivistic, relativistic, pluralistic society of the U.S., in which the predominant cultural bias of patriarchy is being challenged by an ever more coherent feminist critique, how can we decide what assumptions should prevail as the under-layer of our sociopolitical response...
...The private contractual agreement of Whitehead and Stern began with sentiments of altruism on her part and gratitude on his...
...Perhaps pronatalism was also the force that prompted Elizabeth Stern to agree to her husband's unorthodox scheme...
...A professor of sociology at Baruch College in New York City and a mother of two, Katz Rothman in her book includes one of the most touching accounts of women's experiences of pregnancy that I have encountered...
...She prefers to see children thought of as persons in relationship to parents and others who respond to their needs for "preference, specialness, daily love...
...Surrogacy contracts are not just private arrangements...
...But I listened to her defense of abortion as a woman's right with discomfort laced with incredulity: "abortion, like pregnancy itself, takes its meaning from the woman in whose body the pregnancy is unfolding...
...It concluded with an animosity and bitterness witnessed by all the world in a court case that revealed profound differences of opinion as to what constituted the best interests of their child...
...Surrogates agreeing to bear a child for a fee can be looked upon as reproductive prostitutes who are expected to be alienated from the life they carry in order to be emotionally capable of surrendering it at birth...
...Whitehead's story, while heartrending, is presented in a biased way...
...Barbara Katz Rothman presents a perceptive analysis of how technology, capitalism, and patriarchy function in society to undermine the dignity of women, especially of mothers...
...The broker who brought these folks together was Noel Keane, an enterprising attorney who concocted a plan to take advantage of the market created by the desires of infertile people...
...what a woman endures when pregnant, her contribution to the child in her womb, clearly counts for far more than a genetic father's sperm...
...It will be much easier for society to hear and evaluate the common-sense case against surrogacy made by Thomas Shannon than the subtle, and sometimes flawed, feminist critique presented by Barbara Katz Rothman...
...In view of the fact that the 1987 statement on reproductive morality issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith managed to develop its case without engaging any moral scholarship not contained in hierarchical teaching, I was impressed to watch Shannon build his argument through a critical analysis of contemporary culture and a creative engagement with commonly held ethical wisdom...
...Enter Barbara Katz Rothman, author of Recreating Motherhood, with a wide-ranging feminist critique of the traditional role played by women vis a vis motherhood...
...That does not mean I am willing to dismiss her entire analysis of mothers and motherhood...
...Martin's Press, $17.95, 220 pp...
...Katz Rothman objects to surrogacy because she thinks women are entitled to exercise full parental rights over the children they bear...
...If her heartbreak is not to be in vain, society must set limits to surrogacy arrangements...
...Shannon, a professor of religion and social ethics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and a respected Roman Catholic ethicist, crafts his argument without a single citation from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, or Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger...
...In our society many women feel that they are incomplete and deficient if they are not mothers...
...Katz Rothman deplores the exploitation of women and the commodification of children, both of whom are purchased for a price in surrogacy arrangements...
...It was the coercive force of pronatalism that caused Mary Beth Whitehead to think that conceiving, bearing, and birthing William Stern's child would make her a happier, more integrated woman...
...they have social components as well: the well-being of the vulnerable child so produced, and that of all the blood-, adoptive-, and near-relatives (for example, Richard Whitehead and the Whiteheads' two children) of that child...
...RECREATING MOTHERHOOD Ideology and Technology in a Patriarchal Society Barbara Katz Rothman W.W...
...Being an ethicist and a mother of four, I recognize no such arbitrary right to deny life to another and acknowledge, instead, an obligation to respect and safeguard nascent life...
...Eileen P. Flyim In Surrogate Motherhood, Thomas A. Shannon presents a convincing moral analysis of why society should not endorse surrogacy contracts...
...Why does Thomas Shannon think that society should pass legislation not merely regulating but banning surrogacy...
...Reproductive prostitution is profoundly degrading to women...
...Given the possibilities of reproductive technology and the apparent willingness of brokers to contract just about any kind of baby-making arrangement, tragic messes similar to the Baby M. case may be repeated with increasing frequency in the years ahead...
...Okay, so Katz Rothman touched a raw nerve in me with her relativism and subjectivism...
...grown from their seed...
...A MOTHER'S STORY Mary Beth Whitehead With Loretta Schwartz Nobel St...
...society almost seems to coerce women into becoming mothers to achieve an identity...
...Norton & Company, $18.95, 282 pp...
...Mary Beth Whitehead thought that she could do a good deed for a nice couple by giving them a little baby...
...Should society stand aimlessly by, or should society impose limits on the implementation of noncoital reproductive schemes...
...SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD The Ethics of Using Human Beings Thomas A. Shannon Crossroad, $17.95, 191 pp...
Vol. 116 • June 1989 • No. 12
