Surrogacy

Surrogacy challenges fundamental anthropological categories of family, kinship, gender, and race, and scholars have used surrogacy to reflect upon the moral economies of surrogacy; the impact of surrogacy on the cultural meanings of kinship and relationality; gay men using surrogacy to form families; the political economy of surrogacy; reproductive stratification through race and ethnicity; reproductive nationalism; brokerage in surrogacy; and the importance of the internet and social media. Empirical accounts of surrogacy from around the globe suggest that the experience of surrogacy is complex and dependent upon the social and legal context in which it takes place: The level of social acceptability; the social and emotional support for all parties; and nature of the contract and relationship between the surrogate and intended parents. The development of a global cross-border trade in surrogacy as a form of “reproductive travel” has posed further complex relations between surrogacy and capital.