"O Estado tem de regular" (2)

No seguimento de "O Estado tem de regular", What's Wrong With Gestational Surrogacy? de David D. Friedman:

Gestational surrogacy is the arrangement by which a couple arrange to fertilize the woman's egg with the man's sperm, then have the fertilized ovum implanted and gestated in another woman's womb ..

I gather, however, from a conversation with someone who has been researching the subject, that in most of western Europe it is illegal ..

Which raises an obvious question: Why would anyone be against the arrangement? ..

There are, I think, a number of possible answers, although none that in my view justify the restrictions. One is that the decision to be a host mother is not freely made since it is "compelled" by poverty ..

A second possibility, following a line of argument originated (I think) in the context of prostitution .. is that by permitting a woman to rent out the use of her womb (body) we "commodify" motherhood (sex), cause people to think of it as something to be bought and sold, and so cheapen the human experience ..

A somewhat better argument that might be made against surrogacy is that permitting a couple to produce a child when they otherwise could not means that they will have no need to adopt, hence prohibiting surrogacy benefits children in need of parents. There is some logic to the argument, but its morality is questionable ..

Finally there comes what I suspect is the real reason. Natural is good, and surrogacy (like IVF before it, and many other things as well) is unnatural. Our grandparents didn't do it, our pre-human ancestors didn't do it, so there must be something wrong with it, something wicked, sinful. Icky.

And worse still if done for money.