Surrogacy, Contract and Labor. Normative Issues Surrounding the Right to Self-Ownership and to Property in the Body

This analysis addresses key normative and critical issues concerning the right to surrogacy as it relates to self-ownership and property rights. Surrogacy remains a conpretentious choice, expanding possibilities for women as both workers and mothers. Additionally, issues of gender, self-ownership, and exploitation, which were central topics for feminists in the 1980s and 1990s, remain highly controversial in the contemporary debate. Specifically, in the first part, I will examine the limitations of the liberal property model that views individual dual as property holders with the right to do as they please with their bodies and body parts. This issue arises within the current ethical-legal framework that questions whether people can legitimately be considered owners of their bodies and parts. In this context, in the second part, I will argue that in a liberal democratic society, the right to surrogacy is better understood as a contractual right and as a right to freedom of occur optional choice, rather than being tied to the right to self-ownership and property rights.