In order to become ethically acceptable, surrogacy must change beyond
recognition. But we need more surrogacy, not less! The surrogacy industry
is worth over 1 billion dollars a year, and many of its surrogates work in
terrible conditions, while many gestate babies for no pay at all. Should it
be illegal to pay someone to gestate a baby for you? Full Surrogacy Now
brings a fresh and unique perspective to the debate. Rather than making
surrogacy illegal or allowing it to continue as is, Sophie Lewis argues we
should be looking to radically transform it. Surrogates should be put front
and center, and their rights to the babies they gestate should be expanded
to acknowledge that they are more than mere vessels. In doing so we can
break down our assumptions that children necessarily belong to those whose
genetics they share. This might sound like a radical proposal but expanding
our idea of who children belong to would be a good thing. Taking collective
responsibility for children, rather than only caring for the ones we share
DNA with, would radically transform notions of kinship. Adopting this
expanded concept of surrogacy helps us to see that it always, as the saying
goes, takes a village to raise a child.