Surrogacy and the Fiction of Medical Necessity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21598326 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Teresa Baron (0000-0001-9930-209X, University of Nottingham, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 40-47 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0963-1801 • E-ISSN: 1469-2147 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0963180123000269 |
| PMID | 37170395 |
| OpenAlex | W4376223908 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 10 |
A number of countries and states prohibit surrogacy except in cases of “medical necessity” or for those with specific medical conditions. Healthcare providers in some countries have similar policies restricting the provision of clinical assistance in surrogacy. This paper argues that surrogacy is never medically necessary in any ordinary understanding of this term. The author aims to show first that surrogacy per se is a socio-legal intervention and not a medical one and, second, that the intervention in question does not treat, prevent, or mitigate any actual or potential harm to health. Legal regulations and healthcare-provider policies of this kind therefore codify a fiction—one which both obscures the socio-legal motivations for surrogacy and inhibits critical examination of those motivations while mobilizing normative connotations of appeals to medical need. The persisting distinction, in law and in moral discourse, between “social” and “medical” surrogacy, is unjustified
Harm · Health care · Law and economics · Medical law · Normative · Political science · Sociology · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Law · Medicine · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Nursing · Reproductive Health and Technologies
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |