JRI 

Surrogacy: Medicalization of Motherhood

Vol. 9, Issue 2, / July-September 2008
(pages 144-164)

Mahmood Ghazi Tabatabaie Corresponding Author
- Department of Demography, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran
Abu Ali Vedadhir
- Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Received: 7/1/2008 Accepted: 7/1/2008 - Publisher : Avicenna Research Institute

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Abstract

Introduction: Surrogacy is one of the important new reproductive technosciences that contributes to medicalization of motherhood, providing an alternative method to natural fertility as well as a resolution to infertility. According to sociologists, medicalization is a multidimensional process by which natural and non-medical problems or conditions become defined, treated and managed as medical problems, using specialized vocabulary, professional approaches, particular instru-ments and interventions techniques. Reviewing socially constructed nature of surrogacy and its various social aspects and implications, this article shows how surrogacy serves to turn mother-hood, a natural and vital experience in women’s life, to the growing process of medicalization. Materials & Methods: This paper seeks to provide a sociological analysis of the constructionist nature and implications of surrogacy by reviewing the body of knowledge and literature developed in sociology. Drawing on the notion of medicalization , the paper is to show how surrogacy has contributed and continues to contribute to the medicalization of motherhood. Results: Sociological analyses show that the alternative methods to natural fertility or new paths to cure infertility including surrogacy are socially constructed and have numerous and far-reach-ing sociological aspects and implications. The novel technosciences like surrogacy play a central role in dealing with, redefinition and accordingly construction of human problems and experience-es. Surrogacy, inter alia, introduces the new form of medicalization of motherhood by blurring the distinction between what is natural and what is made by mankind on the subject of motherhood. Conclusion: Like most of new medical and reproductive technosciences, surrogacy provides a new configuration of women’s lives and motherhood in particular that can be primarily characterized by medicalization or transformation of motherhood into jurisdiction of medicine.


Keywords: Medicalization, Surrogacy, Motherhood, Social Constructionism, Claim-making, Reproduction, Infertility, Technoscience


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