Bridging Reproductive and Productive Work: The Case of Surrogates in California

ABSTRACT

In this article, we explore the perspectives of commercial gestational surrogates in California, USA. Women who gestate for others reveal themselves as important agents in the process of giving meaning and cultural legitimacy to their practice, thus demonstrating their capacity to act in their own interest and resignify their work in their own terms. To them, surrogacy is more than wage labor. They assert the importance of their experience as a source of professional skills, downplaying its monetary value and placing it within favorable moral frameworks, thus finding cultural legitimacy. In doing so, they bridge the divide between traditional female reproductive work (unpaid emotional, relational, and care work) and productive work (paid professional work in the public sphere). They achieve this without subverting the underlying values of western kinship. The results shed light on employability and entrepreneurship of surrogates in the fertility industry of California.

KEYWORDS:

• Assisted reproductive technology
• commercial gestational surrogacy
• fertility industry
• reproductive bioeconomies
• reproductive tourism
• USA

Acknowledgments

Our sincere thanks to Inti A. Trujillo Hinchey for his excellent translation and editing work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Commercial gestational surrogacy (CGS) is a practice whereby a woman gestates an embryo without contributing her genetic material and, after delivery, hands the baby over to the intended parents and is paid for her services. It is distinct from both traditional surrogacy, in which the surrogate provides the egg, and altruistic surrogacy, in which only the costs of pregnancy and delivery are covered.

2. The cost of CGS in the US is US$120,000–150,000, of which pregnant women usually receive US$ 40,000–45,000.

3. https://seedsethics.org/

4. This was the case with all the agencies contacted during our research and was consistent with all the websites we consulted.

5. When Callie was a surrogate for the second time, she already had her own agency and gestated for her own business located in Idaho.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the MINECO/FEDER under Grant reference [CSO2015-64551-C3-2-R]; and the Unión Iberoamericana de Universidades (UIU) under Grant reference [USP-02-2019].

Notes on contributors

Ariadna Ayala

Ariadna Ayala Rubio, PhD in Social Anthropology and Associate professor of social anthropology at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). She is a member of the research Group “Anthropology of Social and Cultural Policies” (APSYC) at UCM. Specialist in public policy analysis applied to ethnic minorities, her lines of research also include the anthropology of health and social vulnerability, as well as the analysis of new forms of family derived from the use of assisted reproduction techniques. She has carried out research stays at the University of California Berkeley (USA) and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France).

Consuelo Álvarez Plaza

Consuelo Álvarez Plaza, PhD in Social Anthropology from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). She has been Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at UCM where she continues as Honorary Professor. She is a research member of the Research Group “Anthropology of Social and Cultural Policies” (APSYC) at UCM. Co-founder and coordinator of the Latin Network of Researchers in Reproductive Biotechnologies (REDLIBRE). Lines of research: ethnographic research in new contexts of procreation and reproductive biotechnologies, genetics as a cultural icon, kinship and new forms of family, sexual and reproductive health and public policies.

Ana María Rivas

Ana María Rivas, PhD in Sociology (specializing in Social Anthropology and Ibero-American Studies) from the Complutense University of Madrid and Postgraduate Diploma in Social Anthropology and Ethnology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She is a member of the UCM research groups, Employment, Gender and Social Cohesion (EGECO) and Anthropology of Social and Cultural Policies (APSYC). Lines of research: anthropology of kinship and family; family diversity; assisted reproduction; labor market, family and public policies; anthropology of work. She is a member of the Latin Network of Researchers in Reproductive Biotechnologies.