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Abstract

Surrogacy arrangement is the carrying of pregnancy for intended parents by someone 
who is genetically unrelated to the surrogate mother. The practice of surrogacy has been 
identified as the term motherhood which began to be used at the end of the nineteenth 
century. Motherhood is associated only with women since the state of motherhood has a 
direct impact on women's live. Motherhood is generally known to begin when a woman 
gives birth to a baby. Women are under pressure to bear children. This practice however 
appears to have deviated from the traditional African norms and standards of gestation 
and childbirth which recognizes one natural mother who reproduces through natural 
sexual and reproductive procedure. The problem that was addressed in the research is 
centered on the practice of surrogacy as it violates the identity and dignity ascribed to a 
mother.  The research employed analytic method.

Keywords: Surrogacy, Traditional Surrogacy, Gamete Donation, Motherhood and 
Gestational Surrogacy.

Introduction 
Our central focus in this paper is on Surrogacy, its meaning and the clarification of other 
associated concepts.  In the first section we are going to look at definitions of the 
keywords used. Secondly, is to examine critically the implications of gestational 
Surrogacy on motherhood. 

The traditional ways of motherhood and the values attached to it have undergone dramatic 
changes consequent upon the advancements in biomedical technology. Thomas Shanon 
Shannon (1997) said that there have been three major revolutions in this century. The first, 
which occurred in the 1950s, was the introduction of Oral conception; the second was the 
introduction of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in 1978 and finally surrogacy motherhood was 
introduced in the 1980s. This marked the separation of sex from reproduction, 
reproduction from sex and both sex and reproduction from the traditional family model. 
(Shannon, 1997)

Surrogacy arrangement or surrogacy agreement is the carrying of pregnancy for intended 
parents. There are two main types of surrogacy, gestational surrogacy and traditional 
surrogacy. In gestational surrogacy, the pregnancy results from the transfer of an embryo 
created by IVF, so the resulting child will be genetically unrelated to the surrogate. 
Gestational surrogates are also referred to as gestational carriers. In traditional surrogacy, 

AN EXAMINATION OF THE PRACTICE OF MOTHERHOOD AND 

SURROGACY IN YORUBA CULTURE.

Gladys Oluwatosin OLUDARE and Titi Christian FALANA, Ph.D

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the surrogate is impregnated naturally or artificially, but the resulting child is genetically 
related to the surrogate.( Falana,2013).

However, intended parents may seek a surrogacy arrangement when pregnancy is 
medically impossible or delayed, a pregnancy presents in unacceptable danger to the 
mother's health or same sex couples wish to procreate. Scientific and technological 
innovations have produced changes in so many ways of perceiving the world around us. 
This is evident in the technology of surrogate motherhood. Surrogacy involves 
impregnating one woman to gestate a baby who is raised by another woman. In western 
culture, the practice of surrogacy is very common.

Surrogacy
The word 'Surrogacy' is derived from the Latin word 'subrogare' which simply means one 
woman the surrogate mother carries a child for another person or persons( the 
commissioning couple) as  result of an agreement prior to the conception  that the child 
should be handed over to that person after birth. Surrogacy arrangement or surrogacy 
agreement is the carrying of pregnancy for intended parents. There are two main types of 
surrogacy, gestational surrogacy and traditional surrogacy. In gestational surrogacy, the 
pregnancy results from the transfer of an embryo created by IVF, so the resulting child 
will be genetically unrelated to the surrogate. Gestational surrogates are also referred to as 
gestational carriers. In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate is impregnated naturally or 
artificially, but the resulting child is genetically related to the surrogate. (Gibbs,2008).
 
However, intended parents may seek a surrogacy arrangement when either pregnancy is 
medically impossible or delayed, a pregnancy presents in unacceptable danger to the 
mother's health or same sex couples wish to procreate. Scientific and technological 
innovations have produced changes in so many ways of perceiving the world around us. 
This is evident in the technology of surrogate motherhood. Surrogacy involves 
impregnating one woman to gestate a baby who is raised by another woman.

Traditional Surrogacy 
 Traditional surrogacy arrangements uses artificial insemination(A1) to impregnate the 
surrogate mother's egg with the sperm of a man who is not her husband. The sperm that is 
used is usually the intended father's sperm.  Artificial insemination is probably the least 
complicated of the assisted reproductive therapies and refers to the process of introducing 

14sperm into the female reproductive organs by other means other than sexual intercourse .

Gestational Surrogacy 
 Instead of using the method of artificial insemination(A1), gestational surrogacy uses a 
more complicated procedure known as in vitro fertilization (IVF). This procedure refers 
to the process by which a doctor stimulates woman ovaries, removes several eggs and 
fertilizes the egg outside her body. The fertilized egg is then introduced into the 
gestational surrogate's uterus. The gestational surrogate carries the child to term, however 
she never has a generic link to the baby.

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Gamete Donation
 This is the using of eggs, sperm, or embryos from someone else in order to help intended 
parents to have a child. Intended parent is the term used for the persons who will raise the 
children. Donors which are people who donate either the eggs or sperm and they can be 
known to the intended parents or introduced through a reproductive center.

Motherhood
The term “motherhood” which we started using at the end of the nineteenth century refers 
to the state or condition of being a mother. (motherhood,www.encyclopedia.social-
sciences).

Motherhood is often defined as an automatic set of feelings and behaviour that is switched 
on by pregnancy and the birth of a baby. It is also viewed as a moral transformation 
whereby a woman comes to terms with being different in that she ceases to be an 
autonomous individual because she is one way or the other attached to another person.

In many societies, a central feature of motherhood is that it should ideally occur within a 
heterosexual relationship, where a man and a woman cohabit and preferably legally 
married. Motherhood is generally known to begin when a woman gives birth to a baby. 
Generally, women are under pressure to bear children and motherhood is often associated 
with their maturity and achievement in life. Being a mother is also considered to be a 
normal life course stage for women. This perception is also common in other societies. 
(Akujobi,2011) .

A mother is someone who carries pregnancy; give births and nurtures till the child reaches 
adulthood. Adoption motherhood is when a woman adopts a child . Foster  motherhood  is  
very close to adoption, It is a situation whereby a woman who is not the mother of a child 
takes up the responsibility of caring for the child. However, the foster mother does not 
have any legal claim over the child unless the child is adopted, For example, in China, 
many Chinese women accepted without question, the view that child bearing was a 
natural and necessary part of their family life course, Therefore, few people considered 
the option of not having children. The pressure for women's childbearing is derived not 
only from their personal network or relations and friends but also from society. 
(Akujobi,2011).

Historically, despite changes in women's labor force participation, fertility rates and age 
at first marriage, the experience of motherhood has remained a central aspect of most 
women's lives. Motherhood is socially constructed as an essential part of adult feminity so 
that women who do not become mothers, for whatever reason are usually unhappy. Many 
women share the idealized view of motherhood common in many societies so it is not the 
case that they are forced into having children. Motherhood, which is having an experience 
of carrying pregnancy and giving birth to children, wherein the mother finds joy in doing 
her duty as a mother should not be jeopardized for money or bio-medical 
advancement.(Jones,2002).

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Types of Motherhood
§Genetic Motherhood

 A genetic mother is the one whose contribution to the child was the ovum, and hence the 
genes.The genetic link a mother has to her child is an important component of 
motherhood. In today's society, the genetic connection between parent and child has an 
almost divine reverence. Some cultures and religious traditions that do not believe in a 
formal afterlife believe that we live on through the genes of our children. Parents often see 
their own genetic child as a small link to immortality, thus going to great physical 
emotional and financial lengths to produce genetically related children.

§Gestational Motherhood
Another component of motherhood is the pregnant woman's biological and emotional 
bond created with the child by simply gestating the embryo in her womb for nine months. 
Therefore, the resulting child is impacted in some part of the gestational mother 
regardless of who contributed the genetic materials. Biologically, the placenta, an organ 
that is genetically part of the fetus and controls the transfer of hormones from mother to 
fetus connects the mother and the fetus. Throughout the pregnancy, the developing fetus 
and its placenta form a unique interrelated partnership in large part controlled by material 
contributions. In addition to the placenta, the mother's entire body and overall health play 
a large role in the development and health of the fetus. Many pregnant women report the 
development of an attachment to their fetus especially after quickening, the point at which 
a woman begins to feel the movements of the fetus. 

§Intent Motherhood
The contractual aspect of motherhood is not traditionally seen as a component of material 
rights but with the advent of surrogacy contracts and increased medical advances, intent 
plays a new role in reproductive process. The intended mother is the woman who has 
orchestrated the entire gestational surrogacy arrangement including the reproductive 
relationship between the gestational mother and the gamete donor therefore she should 
have connection to the child because she was essentially responsible for the birth of the 
child.

The implications of Gestational Surrogacy  on Motherhood
Before the advent of new reproductive technologies, motherhood in western societies 
referred to the biological mother. The concept of motherhood was not ambiguous.  It was 
traditionally accepted that the mother of a child is the person who physically gives birth to 
the child. The status of motherhood used to be self-evident by the pregnancy and birth of a 
child. (Shannon ,1997)

However, the concept of motherhood in recent times has been changing  from the 
generally known or accepted form. The introduction and wide development of new 
reproductive technologies have complicated the concept of “motherhood”. Gestational 
surrogacy which embraces whole heartedly reproductive technologies has radically re- 
defined motherhood from what it ought to be. In gestational surrogacy, several types of 
motherhood are possible.(Hisano ,2011)

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1. the genetic mother, who is the source of the egg;
2. the gestational mother, who carries the pregnancy,
3. the nurturing mother, who raises the child;
4. the genetic-gestational mother, who is the source of the egg and carried the 

pregnancy but does not raise the child;
5. the genetic-nurturing mother, who is the source of the egg and raises the child but 

does not carry pregnancy and;
6. the whole mother, who is the source of the egg, carries the pregnancy and raises 

the child. (Jones, 2002)

The above  raises the potential of multiple claimants to the rights and duties of 
motherhood. The legal system is therefore currently faced with the challenges of defining 
motherhood and the various relations contingent in conception and pregnancy. There can 
now be multiple actors in the reproductive process who may have or desire recognized 
social roles regardless of their biological ones. (Niekerk, 1995) For example, under the 
British law, the woman who carries the child is considered the mother, whether or not the 
child is genetically linked to her. Furthermore, the husband of the woman who gestates the 
child is considered the child's father, regardless of genetic link to the child. The intention 
to treat a person as mother is a social construction which may contrast with the natural 
facts. In the past, the natural facts that define a mother always seemed more 
comprehensive than those defining her partner. She both donated genetic material and 
brought the child to term, elements combined in the former cultural assumptions that 
child birth was a supreme natural fact of life. The increase in the number of women 
involved in gestational surrogacy arrangements could lead to a complicated analysis in 
maternity disputes. In adjudicating maternity disputes, different courts base their 
decisions on three different components of motherhood: genetic, gestational and intent 
motherhood. (Zyl,1995)

Owing to the fact that most states have no legislation specifically governing the 
gestational surrogacy arena, most maternal rights disputes are resolved in the court. To 
adjudicate such matters, state courts have developed tests to determine material rights 
based on three components of motherhood which have been earlier discussed  under types 
of motherhood :

1) The genetic component
2) The gestational component
3) The intent-to-mother component

The courts have been forced to choose one woman's contribution to the child over the 
other. Each of these three components contributes to motherhood but alone does not 
define motherhood. Therefore, the court hierarchical system have always been 
inherently unfair and ineffective.( Emeka, Ekeke& Ucheghue 2010) It is evident that 
gestational surrogacy. This has produced complications in maternal rights disputes 
including the once impossible separation of the genetic and gestational contributor. 
Gestational surrogacy coupled with the technological intervention it embodies, has 
clearly complicated the traditional understanding of motherhood, such that the 

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fragmentation has caused a lot of social and ethical problems. It has challenged our 
understanding of 'motherhood' and forced us to question what it means in our society. 
Gestational surrogacy creates the new situation in which a child had not one but two 
biological mothers – one genetic and the other gestational. 

Evaluation
A serious moral weakness of reproductive Surrogacy is that it can be harmful to the 
children who are created. The practice of commercial surrogacy operates only in the 
interests of the adults involved not in the interests of the child involved who is created. 
Whether 'Surrogacy” is seen as the purchase of a baby,  the purchase of parental rights. Or 
the purchase of reproductive labor, all the three views shares the same significant flaws. 
They endorse the transfer, for a fee, of the infant from the woman who gestated it those 
who commissioned but without justifying such a transfer; they fail to demonstrate that the 
commissioners haveany entitlement to the infant, or for that matter, suitability to be the 
infant's parents; they fail to take the any notice of the infant needs, interests and 
wellbeing.(Overall, 2015).

Judging from experience, we can say in the words of Charles F. Curren (1978) that it is a 
truism that medical science and practice has contributed immensely in recent times to 
correct birth defects, cure diseases, shed light on our ignorance and ultimately conquered 
all the ailments  biotechnology and medical science is appreciable, for at least man now 
has at his disposal ever more effective therapeutic resources which constitutes progress in 
the service of man. Although the unenforceable consequences of some other new 
technologies that are fundamentally non therapeutic, can also involve serious risks. They 
can also expose man to the temptations to go beyond the limits of a reasonable dominion 
over nature.

Furthermore, it is worthy to note that in the interventions on procreation, the value and 
rights of the human person must be safeguarded. Hence, the need to take  into cognizance 
an ethical look into biotechnology. This evaluation should be based on the criteria of 
moral judgment as regards the applications of scientific research and technology 
especially in relation to human life and its beginnings. These criteria are for the respect, 
defense and promotion of man, his primary and fundamental rights to life and his dignity 
as a person who is endowed with a spiritual soul and with moral responsibility. Through 
this way, man will be helped to recognize and respect his rights and duties. In this light, 
gestational surrogacy can be questioned on the grounds as to whether it fulfils the  criteria 
such as respect, defence and promotion of man, his primary and fundamental rights to life 
and his dignity .

Ethical evaluation of gestational surrogacy  will be viewed under the following sub topics 
below:

(a) Procreation in marriage
(b) Economic perspective of gestational surrogacy
(c) The psychological effects of gestational surrogacy
(d) Human life in embryo

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(e) Attack on motherhood.

§Procreation in Marriage
The gift of life, which God has entrusted to man, challenges him to appreciate the 
inestimable value of what he has been given and to take responsibility for it. This 
fundamental principle must be placed at the centre of one's reflection in order to clarify 
and solve the moral problems raised by gestational surrogacy with artificial interventions 
on life, as it originates in the process of procreation.
Doefler John in his examination of reproductive technology to ascertain whether it assists 
or replaces the divine act of procreation in marriages notes the following criteria to be 
followed:

(1) There must be a natural conjugal act open to life;
(2) The child must be the fruit of the conjugal act that is, the child must be a principal 

course of conception;
(3) There must be a natural uninterrupted continuity from the conjugal act to 

conception.(Burell & Edozien, 2014).

In essence, Doefler John (2000)  brings to the fore the fact that where these criteria are not 
met, it replaces the conjugal act of procreation in marriage. Thus, the artificial 
reproductive technologies used by gestational surrogacy fall short of the above 
mentioned criteria. This is because they separate procreation from sexual intercourse. 
The means of trans-military life should be more carefully considered and understood in 
marriage because the human life is sacred, unique and different. Thus, should be treated 
with respect and dignity.

§Economic Perspective of Gestational Surrogacy
The issue of economy is central to the unethical background of gestational surrogacy. 
Through this mode surrogacy launched a huge attack on the human person by demeaning 
and denigrating his moral value, spiritual value and distinctive state of the human person.  
The introduction of money where the surrogate mother is being paid off for the service she 
has rendered, and the argument that women should be allowed to do what they want with 
their body,  that their autonomy should be respected. However, this will lead to 
prostitution. This is against Kantian ethics that we should not be seen as a means to an end 
but ends in themselves. Ethically and morally, gestational surrogacy raises concern. Kant, 
in his theory of morality, claims that we as  people, have a duty not to use other people as a 
means to our ends, as all people should be treated as ends in themselves. I believe that 
Kant's. categorical imperative draws too stark a bright line  

§Psychological Effects of Gestational Surrogacy 
Gestational surrogacy has inevitable psychological trauma as one of its consequences. 
This psychological imbalance affects the commissioning couple, the surrogate mother 
and children resulting from surrogate arrangement. Most surrogate mothers go into the 
practice of surrogate not because it is the right thing to do, but most times, because of the 
financial answer to material problems it provides. After getting pregnant and giving birth 

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to the child, the surrogate mother may decide to keep the child because she is bonded with 
the baby in her womb.(Agnafors,2014)
The child may also suffer psychological trauma if such a child get to know the history of 
situation surrounding his or her birth. The child may suffer from loss of identity and self 
confidence.

§Human Life in Embryo
Another reason why gestational surrogacy should be rejected in line with non-therapeutic 
experimentation or diagnosis is the fact that it promotes the manipulation of human 
embryos and does not regard them as potential human persons or as having equal moral 
status with the human person. Surrogacy has the implication of preventing people from 
believing that human embryos have life and soul and so should be accorded respect and 
dignity and treated as sacred entity. Instead, it treats human embryos as things for 
experimentation, (Hill, 1990)the church pronounces that at the moment of conception, a 
new life or new individual is formed. This individual has a right to life, to be protected and 
cared for in all ramifications as a human person.

§Attack on Motherhood
Another strong reason why gestational surrogacy should be rejected is its effect on 
motherhood. Gestational surrogacy has bastardized the term motherhood which was 
traditionally known as biological mother. It has succeeded in bringing separation between 
the genetic and gestational mother who was supposed to be one person. This calls for a 
serious demand for the redefinition of motherhood. Consequently, many have argued that 
gestational surrogacy has divided into fragments the concept of motherhood such that 
four or five women could share in the procreation of a child which is against the 
traditional conception of motherhood. It has led to the misinterpretation, misconception 
and redefinition of the value of motherhood.

Conclusion

The main thrust of this paper is an attempt to ethically evaluate gestational surrogacy and 
motherhood . Therefore, we have been able to do some concept clarifications, so also 
consider motherhood vis a vis  surrogacy. We have also considered, critically the meaning 
of motherhood and the types. We reviewed the idea motherhood via Surrogacy which 
connotes multiple mothers. We examined the artificial reproductive method which 
gestational surrogacy involves and highlighted the flaws in its attempt to remedy 
infertility. We also considered the implication of gestational surrogacy on the concept of 
motherhood. How possible is it for a child to have multiple mothers who could claim a 
right to him or her because they shared in the process of his or her birth? We, therefore, 
submit that surrogacy in its entirety should not be encouraged because the confusion it 
creates cannot be commeasurable to the fact that it solves infertility.

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