Surrogacy is an arrangement where a woman agrees to carry and give birth to a child for another person(s). It can provide the opportunity for involuntarily childless individuals to have genetically related children, which may, for some people, be central to realising their procreative, and even life, goals. Surrogacy is becoming increasingly common, although it is subject to continued ethical debate. In Australia, only altruistic (unpaid) surrogacy is legal; however, some authors propose that commercial surrogacy may be ethically justifiable.
A monopsony is where there are multiple sellers, but only one buyer for a good or service. In the literature on organ selling, another body-commercialising practice, some bioethicists have argued that establishing a monopsony could allow the creation of an ethically defensible organ market.
We examine ethical considerations and public attitudes regarding payment for surrogates and a monopsony for commercial surrogacy.
We surveyed a sample of 136 participants from the public. Most respondents believed that arguments based on exploitation were appropriate, and that surrogates should be paid an additional fee to ensure that they are not being taken unfair advantage of. Participants also had concerns about high payments being potentially coercive. Overall, many respondents (58.2%) agreed with a monopsony for commercial surrogacy being ethically justifiable.
Considering public moral intuitions alongside our analysis of ethical arguments, we found good reasons to suggest that the current altruistic framework could potentially be exploiting surrogates, through low or no payments. Our findings support establishing a regulated payment system for surrogates, such as a monopsony.