1.
Ethics of Gestational Surrogacy
Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy and
Center for Ethics of Science and Technology
Chulalongkorn University
hsoraj@chula.ac.th

2.
Outline
● Basic ethical issues
● What could be particularly unethical in
mother surrogacy
● Ethics and law
● Recommendations

3.
Basic Ethical Issues
● Multiple mothers
● Commercialization
● Natural ties
● Family values
● Exploitation of surrogate mothers
● Global justice issues

4.
Particularly Unethical Issues
● Exploitation
– But what would happen if there were no
exploitation (for example, if the surrogate
mother is adequately compensated and there
is no conflict).
● Compensation
– Is the idea of compensation in itself unethical?

5.
Ethics and Law
● A lot of confusion on the two
● Ethics should always come before the law
– that is, there has to be a broad
agreement in society as to what is right or
wrong before the law comes to effect
accordingly.
● But sometimes law comes before ethics –
which creates a lot of problems.

6.
Current Thai Law
● New law being deliberated in the National
Legislative Assembly
● Very strict – the surrogate mother has to
have a child already and get permission from
her husband; she can’t be parents or
children of the commissioning couple.
● No advertisement, no middleman.
● This will effectively destroy or greatly reduce
the practice of surrogacy in Thailand.

7.
Analysis
● No middleman
– What if the fertility clinic itself function as a middleman?
● No advertisement
– How can this be enforced in reality?
● Compensation
– Many have voiced opinion that some form of compensation should be
all right, if it is fair and no exploitation is involved.
● Medical Council
– Many difficult issues get thrown to the Medical Council.
–
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