Professional Documents
Culture Documents
During the "Baby M" case, I found myself caught up in the media circus surrounding the case and spent an amazing amount of time
in green rooms with Noel King, the man who had brokered the surrogacy contract between Mr. and Mrs. Stern and Mr. and Mrs. Whitehead. I think I spent more time putting on my makeup for that
particular surrogate broker than I did with my husband that year. I
found that one of the interesting things that happened was the way
that the media used me for something it called balance. The media
would have a carefully groomed "surrogate" and her broker on one
side and then on the other side, it would usually have a rabbi or a
priest or minister, and then me. The little tag that appeared in white
letters on the television screen under me sometimes read "author"
and sometimes read "sociologist," but usually it read "feminist," and
so I was there to be the feminist balance. My family and friends time
and again agreed with the viewpoint of the rabbi, the priest, or the
minister. Today, I find myself in the same general mode of opposition to this arrangement we call surrogacy, proving the point that
surrogacy does, indeed, in every possible way, make for very strange
bedfellows.
Although I and others who are critical of the development of
surrogacy from a feminist perspective may be on the same side of this
particular fence as the religious leaders, we are coming from a very
different place, and we are going to a very different place. We just
happen, for the moment, to be in agreement on a particular issue. I
think it is important not to merely say, "Yes, I, too, oppose surrogacy
because it demeans women," and let it go at that. I believe it is important to look at some of the underlying assumptions that make my
opposition to surrogacy so different from the religious opposition.
Each of the religious traditions that we have heard from today, which
are related to our legal tradition, stemming as it does from some of
that Judeo-Christian religious tradition, are based on a fundamental
assumption of relationships between people that comes from an underlying ideology of patriarchy. The word "patriarchy" is often used
as a synonym for sexism or men's rule or any system in which men
rule. This common usage is inaccurate. "Patriarchy" has a specific
t Asst. Professor, Department of Sociology, Baruch College of the City University of New York. A curriculum vitae of the author is included at the end of the essay.
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chose to marry each other. Our society would find the whole thing
incredibly distasteful. But there would be an argument among us
that, because there is no genetic relationship, the children were not
really related and, therefore, the marriage is acceptable. Our society
says that the real relationship is the genetic relationship, not whose
breast the children suckled at or whose womb they grew in. In other
societies, the genetic relationship may be interesting, but it is not definitive. Just because two children have the same father, the children are not really related. As long as they have different mothers,
they are not really siblings.
This example illustrates that even the notion of incest is very
different depending on how you define the relationships between
generations-the parent/child relationship. In a patriarchal system,
what is important is men's need to define the relationship between
themselves and their children and what to do with the troublesome
position of women in developing these definitions. Some of our fundamental assumptions become challenged if you switch from the perspective of men and try to look at it from the perspective of women.
Starting with assumptions that women bear the children of men,
the seed of Abraham covers the world, etc. Given this assumption,
who the mother is, is not a terrifically important question. It almost
does not matter. This is the real moral of the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Haagar. Sarah was Abraham's wife, and Haagar was the
slave girl who bore Abraham a child. Nobody ever questioned that
Haagar was the mother, but what earthly difference did it make who
was the mother? Abraham was the father. The children, whether
they came through Sarah, through Haagar, or from the sky, were
Abraham's children and that is what counted; they were his seed.
Mothers are pretty much dismissable. That is the fundamental
message in the story of Haagar because mothers do not define the relationship. The father defines the relationship. We have this notion
of legitimate and non-legitimate, as if children who do not have a legally identified father are not real, are not legitimate children. It is a
fascinating concept to think of a child, a person standing before you,
as not being legitimately present. What happens in this context,
when these patriarchal notions form some of the underlying assumptions is that when we start developing new reproductive technologices, it gets interesting.
For one thing, the reproductive technologists were forced to confront the fact of women's seed. Women produce genetic material.
Now what? We are left with the idea that the children are half his
and half hers. The children might as well have grown in the back
yard. The essential underlying concept of patriarchy, the seed, is
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what really counts. If women have seed too, then to that extent we
recognize that women have rights in their children. We extend to
women some of the privileges of patriarchy. Women's rights to their
children do not derive from having grown them in their bodies, with
the blood of their bodies, passing them through their genitals, and
suckling them at their breasts. These latter functions are interesting,
but irrelevant. What makes the child a woman's is that it is "half"
hers; it has her genetic material as well as the man's material. The
primacy of the genetic material is still the defining social relationship. Our society is a modified patriarchy because of this fact. It
works in a large degree like this: to the extent that women are like
men, women can have equal say and equal rights. To the extent that
women can function like men, they can be equal beings in the world.
To the extent that women have seed like men, then they can be parents like men. Thus, some of the privileges of patriarchy are extended to women.
With the idea of women enjoying some of the privileges of patriarchy is the potential that women, too, may have the use of wives.
What else could you call women having the use of the bodies of other
women to bear children of their seed? This gives rise to class complications. Who can afford to buy the privileges of patriarchy? Is it women of privilege who can buy the privileges for themselves? Or men
of privilege who can buy the second body to use for their wives. It is
important to remember that this does not work in the interest of women as whole. It serves some of the interests of some of the women
some of the time. It most assuredly does not work in the interests of
women to accord women patriarchal privileges only to the extent to
which women are like men.
I think it is also important to look at the way that modified patriarchy works in the legal history of the custody of the family. The
case of Baby M is the pivotal case that got people thinking about
these issues. A couple of great privileged who decided that the wife
should not have a pregnancy, hired themselves a woman of considerably less privilege to bear their child for them. Had that man gone
into a bar and picked up a devout seventeen-year-old Catholic girl
who would not have an abortion, seduced her, sent her two maternity
smocks, a layette, and a basket of flowers, he could then claim paternity and take the baby from her in a custody battle. He would have
been exactly where he ended up-with custody of a child even
though the mother is still legally the mother. That is something that
I think a lot of us did not fully appreciate until that case broke upon
US.
We realized that even if you invalidate the surrogacy concept and
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say that the woman is still the mother, this makes little difference.
Women do not have particular rights to their children; they have half
rights at best, just as many rights as the father has. Those half rights
become weakened dramatically by the position women find themselves in within our society. We have this notion, a very recent historic notion, that women get custody of children. Women only came
to routinely get custody of children in recent industrial times in
which children were more of a liability than an asset. This developed
at a time when a large number of men, once their marriages had
ended, did not want the responsibilities or burdens of these children
and could not afford huge household staffs of other women to raise
those children. Consequently, the men wanted the women to take
the children. Men would write minimal child support checks and did
not want custody. Only then did a body of literature develop discussing the rights of children and their needs for their mothers. But this
literature developed after men decided they did not want these
children.
In modern times, when men of a certain class have decided that
children are an asset, a status item, then men wanted to keep these
babies. Babies became a status item of the 1980s as expensive acquirements that complimented things like the fancy stroller. When
men wanted to keep these children, men kept these children. Men
repeatedly win custody battles at much higher rates than women do.
When men want custody, they get custody. Men often have acquired
wives subsequent to divorce, so that they can offer a child a two-parent family. Women are less likely to be able to remarry and, therefore, cannot offer the child a two-parent family. Men usually have
higher incomes and other assets that women do not have. Consequently, men win custody when they want custody.
Reproductive technology has developed within this context. The
fundamental ideas were that children were the children of men and
that men have certain rights to "their" children. Noel King, who
brokered the contract between the Sterns and Whiteheads in the
"Baby M" case repeatedly asked how anyone could talk about Mr.
Stern buying the child? King answered that the child was Mr.
Stern's. Whitehead just gave the baby back to the father, Mr. Stern.
Mr. King's viewpoint expresses the age-old idea that the man carries
the seed, the homunculus, that the little person is curled up inside
the sperm and women are, as Caroline Witpick puts it, just the flowerpot in which men plant it. The daddy plants the seed in mommy,
and mommy is simply dirt, in which one plants seeds. A lot of our
religious tradition builds upon the idea of women as unclean, dirty
houses for the pure seed.
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to beat their wives and children in the privacy of their own home short of to death in some religions at some times, and straight to
death in other religions at other times. The sanctity of the family refers to the sanctity of a man's property rights over his wife and his
children. Feminists are concerned with the sanctity of a variety of
families, including the family of a woman and her child, including
the families that various religious traditions do not recognize at all.
The perspective that the religious traditions have adopted made
them tend to reject many of the reproductive technologies, not just
this particular use of women as "surrogates." If one examines the
Catholic tradition, various aspects of the Protestant, and the Jewish
traditions, or the Islamic tradition, there has been a real hesitation to
make use of any kind of donor gamete, whether it is donor insemination or the use of donor eggs. Religions have hesitated about any
kind of "artificial" procreation at all. I think it is important to know
that this hesitation comes from the leadership down. What does it
mean, then, that devout religious women, believing religious women,
women who follow their traditions, use this technology? Catholic
women are over-represented among the users of in vitro fertilization.
Women disobey the teachings of their religions because the real
messages are the importance of having children and that women are
not worthy unless they are the mothers of children. In many traditions, women are not worthy unless they are the mothers of sons.
This explains why the need to use reproductive technologies is very
powerful even among those who otherwise adhere to the teachings of
their religious communities. From the perspective of religious leaders, however, it looks a little different. The leaders can ban all forms
of surrogacy and reproductive technologies as defying the exclusivity
of marriage or the sanctity of the family, raising concerns over adultery and bastardism.
If one starts from a perspective which does not include as its focal points the sanctity of the male-dominated family and the notion
of illegitimacy, then some very different ideas become possible. I do
not reject any and all treatments for infertility that make use of
"high technology," though our high technology is pretty low when
you are on the receiving end of it. Many of these technologies cause
cancers in women. These technologies can be very dangerous to the
women users, and that danger has barely been explored.
I regard infertility as a disability and, like every other disability,
people cope with it in different ways. Some people who learn they
are going to go blind will sacrifice their home, their financial security, the whole family; they will move heaven and earth to retain their
sight. Other people will learn braille and go on. People have differ-
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loss of the September baby in January, and the October baby in February, and so on throughout the year. She loses not some vague possibility, but specific baby after specific baby. From the man's point of
view, there is nobody there until the egg is fertilized. Then, the status of the egg shifts from being valueless to having all the value and
worth of the woman herself in some of the religious traditions. In
this view, the introduction of the sperm transforms the egg from dirt,
uncleanliness, something that a woman has to wash away before a
man can touch her as she loses her menstrual period, to a full human
being worthy of the same consideration as a woman. All because now
the egg is fertilized. From the perspective of the woman, the whole
notion of fertilization and what procreation is supposed to be about is
so very different. We live in very different bodies where this subject
is concerned.
From a woman's perspective, every woman has her own child.
We do not bear the children of other people. We do not bear our husband's children. We do not bear a purchaser's children. We do not
bear the children of the state. It is very dangerous to speak of the
needs of society for fewer children or for more children, because this
characterizes women's procreation as a societal resource. When society needs fewer children, the conclusion would be not to help women
get pregnant; when society needs more children, the conclusion is to
prevent them from avoiding pregnancy. This "societal viewpoint"
leads to the control of women's bodies as if they were a kind of mechanism that society owns to produce the number of children a society
wants at a given moment.
Pregnancy is an intimate social relationship. Our language discards that. Our language says babies "enter the world." From
where? We say babies "arrive." Women do not feel babies "arrive,"
they feel them "leave." Parenthood itself is an intimate social relationship wherever it develops and between whomever it develops.
We need to find a perspective as a society that does not discard the
intimacy, nurturing, and growth that grows between generations, but
a perspective that supports, develops, and encourages that intimacy.
We need to reject the very concept of surrogacy. We need to reject
the notion that any woman is the mother of a child that is not her
own, regardless of the source of the egg and or of the sperm. Maybe
a woman will place that child for adoption, but it is her child to place.
Her nurturing of that child with the blood and nutrients of her body
establishes her parenthood of that child. Trying to find a moral
stance that recognizes the viewpoint of women in these various patriarchal traditions is not an easy task.
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CURRICULUM VITAE
BARBARA KATZ ROTHMAN
EDUCATION
Barbara Katz Rothman received a Ph.D from New York University,
Department of Sociology, 1979. (Dissertation Title: "Two Models of
Maternity Care: Defining and Negotiating Reality."); a M.A. from
Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Department of Sociology, 1972. (Thesis title: "Woman's Place: A Study in Attitudes.");
and a B.A. from Brooklyn College, City University of New York in
Sociology and Psychology (Cum Laude).
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
Centuries of Solace: Expressions of Maternal Griefin PopularLiterature, co-authored with Wendy Simonds, Temple University Press,
(Forthcoming); Editor, The Encyclopedia of Childbearing,The Oryx
Press, (Forthcoming); Recreating Motherhood: Ideology and Technology in a PatriarchalSociety, W.W. Norton & Company, Paperback
edition, W.W. Norton & Company, forthcoming, Japanese edition,
Keiso Shobo Ltd., forthcoming, (1989); The Tentative Pregnancy:
Prenatal Diagnosis and the Future of Motherhood, Paperback edition, Penguin Books, British edition, Pandora Press, German edition,
Metropolis Press, (1986); In Labor: Women and Power in the Birthplace, W.W. Norton & Company, Paperback edition, retitled: Giving
Birth, Penguin Books, British edition, Junction Books, (1982).
JOURNAL ARTICLES
"Motherhood: Beyond Patriarchy, Nova Law Review, v.13, no.2,
pp. 4 8 1 -8 6 (1989); "Recreating Motherhood," New Perspectives Quarterly, v.7, no.1, pp.5 3- 5 7 (1989); "Women as Fathers: Motherhood and
Child Care Under a Modified Patriarchy, Gender and Society, v.3,
no.1, pp.89-104 (1989); "Cheap Labor: Sex, Class, Race - and 'Surrogacy'," Society, v.25, no.3, pp. 2 1-2 3 (1988); "Mitchell Lecture Symposium," Buffalo Law Review, v.36, no.3, Spring, pp.203-55, Reprinted in
Women and the Law, Mary Joe Frug, ed., Foundation Press, forthcoming (1988); "Reproductive Technology and the Commodification
of Life," Women and Health, v.13, no.2, pp.95-100, reprinted in Embryos, Ethics and Women's Rights: Exploring the New Reproductive
Technologies, Baruch, D'Amato and Seager, eds., Haworth Press,
1988, pp. 9 5 -1 0 0 (1987); "Surrogacy: A Question of Values," Conscience, May, pp.1-4, reprinted in Beyond Baby M., Bartels, Priesher,
Vawter, and Caplan, eds., Humana Press, 1990, pp.235-41, and in Social Ethics: Morality and Social Policy, (4th ed.), Thomas A. Mappes
and Jane S. Zembaty, eds., McGraw Hill, 1992, pp. 84 - 8 7 (1987); "Re-
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Unwin, Beacon Press, Harper and Row, McGraw-Hill, Mayfield, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation,
Ohio State University Press, Oxford University Press, Rose Monograph Series of the ASA, Rutgers University Press, Sage Publications, Temple University Press, University of California Press,
Wesleyan University Press, Wiley and Sons, and Yale University
Press.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION
Recipient, Jesse Bernard Award, for Recreating Motherhood Ideology and Technology in a PatriarchalSociety, (1991); Panelist, "Author Meets Critics: Alice S. Rossi and Peter H. Rossi," Annual
Meeting, Cincinnati, (1991); Chair, Committee on Teaching Medical
Sociology of the Medical Sociology Division, (1987-88); Organizer and
Chair, "Teaching the 'Hot Topics' in Medical Sociology," Annual
Meeting, Atlanta, (1988); Eastern District Representative, Committee
on Committees, (1986-88); Medical Sociology Papers Organizer,
(1987); Presenter, "Nurse-Midwifery: Career Motivations and Settings of Practice," Annual Meeting, San Francisco (1982); Presenter,
"Midwives in Transition: Going Through Changes," Annual Meeting,
Toronto, (1981); Presenter, "Genetic Screening," Annual Meeting,
Boston, (1987); Presenter, "Prenatal Diagnosis: Issues in Sociological
Research," Annual Meeting, Baltimore, (1983); Member, Nominations Committee, (1982-83); Co-Chair, Committee on the Status of
Women, (1980-82); Organizer and Chair, Session on "Sociologists Engaged in Feminist Work," Annual Meeting, New York, (1981); Member, Papers Committee, (1980).
SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Member, Board of Directors, (1990-Present); Chair, Program Committee, Annual Meeting, Atlanta, (1988); Organizer and Presenter,
Plenary Session, "Health as a Coercive Value," Annual Meeting, Atlanta, (1988); Discussant, "Women and Health," Annual Meeting, Atlanta, (1988); Discussant, "New Reproductive Technology," Annual
Meeting, New York, (1986); Chair, Local Arrangements Committee,
Annual Meeting, New York (1986); Presenter, "Gender Socialization
in Utero," Annual Meeting, San Antonio, (1984); Co-Chair and Discussant, panel on "Childbirth," Annual Meeting, San Antonio, (1983);
Discussant, "Health Planning and Health Policy," Annual Meeting,
San Francisco, (1982).
SOCIOLOGISTS FOR WOMEN IN SOCIETY
Recipient, Cheryl Miller Lectureship Award, (1988); Associate Editor, Gender and Society, (1987-Present); Panelist, "New Reproductive
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Address, Midwifery and the Community Conference, Calgary, Alberta, (1990); Panelist, Judicial Seminar, "The Drug-Exposed Fetus/
Infant: Responses of the Legal, Medical, and Child Protective Systems," Rochester, New York, (1990); Closing Address, "Empowering
Women," Conference on Gynecology: Issues in Well-Woman Care,
sponsored by the New York State Fund for Midwifery, Inc., New
York City, (1990); Participant, Symposium, "Screening in Prenatal
Diagnosis," under the auspices of WHO/EURO, Leewenhorst Congress Center, Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands, (1990); American
Medical Student Association, Keynote Speaker, Region 10 Conference, Denver, Colorado, (1989); "Bits and Pieces and Civil Liberties,"
Keynote Address, Conference on People as Products, sponsored by
Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research, Boston, (1989);
"Midwifery and the Emergence of Women." Keynote Address, Midwives Alliance of North America, Annual Conference, Boston, (1989);
Nurturing the Mother," Conference sponsored by the New York
State Fund for Midwifery, Columbia University New York, (1989);
"Between Value and Science: The Cultural Shaping of Clinical Practice in Ob/Gyn," Conference on Teaching Law and Ethics in Obstetrical Residency Programs, Sponsored by the University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, (1989); "Recreating Motherhood: Technology in the Service of Ideology," Feminist Scholars Lecture Series, Penn State University, University Park, (1989); Guest Lecture, Natalie Allon
Scholarship Award Ceremony, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New
York, (1989); "Recreating Motherhood," Distinguished Lecture, National Council of Family Relations, Annual Meeting, New Orleans,
(1989); "Recreating Motherhood," Midwives Alliance of North
America, Midwest Regional Conference, Holland, Michigan, (1989);
"Women and Child Care," Conference on Women in Medicine, sponsored by Academisch Medisch Centrum, University of Amsterdam,
the Netherlands, (1989); "The Tentative Pregnancy: Issues in Prenatal Diagnosis," Presented to Medical School, University of Groningen,
the Netherlands, (1989); "New Reproductive Technology," Conference sponsored by Canadian Society of Law and Medicine, Toronto,
(1988); "Childbearing After 40: The Dilemma of Prenatal Diagnosis,"
Women's Health Care Nurse-Practitioner Program, conference sponsored by the State University of New York Health Sciences Center
and Planned Parenthood of New York, (1988); "The Tentative Pregnancy," Plenary session and workshop, National Society of Genetic
Counselors, Annual Meeting, New Orleans, (1988); "Midwifery as
Feminist Praxis," Plenary session and workshops on Prenatal Diagnosis, Cesarean Prevention Movement Conference, Minneapolis, Also
presented to conference co-sponsored by Westchester Putnam CEA
and YWCA of Westchester, New York City, (1988); "On Teaching
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MASS MEDIA
PUBLICATIONS
Contributions to popular magazines and periodicals including ASPO
News, Healthright, Woman's Day, Ms. Magazine, Mothering Magazine, New Directions For Women, New Perspectives Quarterly, New
Women, New York Newsday, On The Issues, Sef, SWS Network, and
USA Today.
Other citations, quotations, and book reviews have appeared in The
New York Times, Newsday, U.S. News and World Report, Ladies'
Home Journal,Lutheran Forum, New York Magazine, Boston Globe,
Village Voice, American Baby, Washington Post Book World, Whole
Earth Catalog,Jerusalem Post, and dietagaszeitung (Berlin).
RADIO AND TELEVISION
Radio and television appearances to discuss Recreating Motherhood,
in Chicago, Hartford, Washington,' D.C., Boston, Minneapolis, and
New York, (1988); Over 20 radio and television appearances to discuss
The Tentative Pregnancy, in Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia,
Hartford, Chicago, and New York, (1986); Over '30 appearances to discuss In Labor, in Boston, Albany, Washington, D.C., San Francisco,
Atlanta, and New York.
Other radio and television appearances on NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN,
Fox, Norwegian Radio, Australian Broadcasting Company, British
Broadcasting Company, Canadian Broadcasting Company, including
"The Today Show," "Good Morning America," "The Phil Donahue
Show," "Body Watch," "Currents," and "The MacNeil-Lehrer News
Hour."
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RICHARD
A.
MCCORMICK, S.J.