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An African Perspective on Surrogacy and the Justification of Motherhood 

Akande Michael Aina 

Department of Philosophy, Lagos State University, Ojo. Lagos, Nigeria. 

Email: ainaakande@yahoo.com 

Abstract: Surrogacy as a practice is supported by science, technology, morality and legality. It 

follows that the issues concerning it cut across all facets of life. And different arguments have being 

advanced for and against this practice. The belief espouse in this paper is that one cannot discuss 

successfully the moral, the science or the legality of surrogacy without delving into the cultural 

question of who is a mother. In other words, it is possible to have simple scientific and legal 

understandings of the practice and still disagree on the cultural level because of its stronger 

emotional appeal. The purpose of this work is to expose the Yoruba-African religio-cultural beliefs 

that have bearing on the understanding of motherhood or ownership of a child. This will be done 

through a critical analysis of Yoruba cultural beliefs about personhood and the metaphysical 

underpinning between birth and the ontology of life itself. Theargument here is that given some 

Yoruba ontological belief about life, motherhood and personhood it may be difficult for the products 

of surrogacy to fit-in into the society in terms of personal and social development. This work goes 

further to recommend that cultural beliefs should be taking into consideration when making laws to 

guide surrogacy in order to avoid conflict between the mothers and the child. 

Keywords: African belief, Human personality, Ikunle-abiyamo, Motherhood and Surrogacy. 

Introduction: In surrogacy arrangement, 

there are four personalities which are often 

mentioned in various debates: the mother and 

father(sperm and egg donours), a woman who 

is the womb donour, and the child who is the 

product of the relationship among the adults 

first mentioned. This is why it becomes 

imperative to ask who should be the real 

mother? Though the intention of the couple 

who hired a surrogate is to have a child of 

their own yet it is necessary to enquire who 

best will take care of the child. The 

relationship among these adults, have 

consequence to the development and the 

status of the child and it goes a long way to 

determine the success and failure of the 

practice. Certain metaphysical and 

cosmological principles in Yoruba–African 

philosophy do help in determining the type of 

relationship that should exist among all the 

parties, during and after the arrangement.1 

It can be a life changing experience for a 

woman to discover that she cannot give birth 

to a child in the normal way like other women, 

but it will be joyous for her to know that she 

can be assisted through technology to have a 

child she can call her own. While adoption of 

children provides certain attractive joy, it is 

incomparable to having a child with the same 

genes through Assisted Reproductive 

Technology (ART). However, this 

arrangement is not totally free from certain 

emotional and legal problems for both the 

child and the couple, who adopt this 

technology. The concept of ownership can be 

problematic in surrogacy just as it is in 

economic and social spheres. In economic 

circle if something is paid for then the 

ownership is transferred to the person that 

paid. In legal terms the ordinary consent to 

will or transfer anything to another person is 

enough justification to possess it. Can the 

same be said in surrogacy arrangement given 

the emotional attachment among human 

beings? The cultural dimension to the concept 

of ownership cannot be ignored in spite of the 

legal and economic ideas of ownership. 

mailto:ainaakande@yahoo.com


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For this reason, this article will discuss some 

religio-cultural beliefs among the Yoruba 

people of Nigeria that have bearing on the 

decision of ownership of the product of 

surrogate arrangement. Not minding the 

legality and the moral consent involved in 

surrogacy arrangement, these religio-cultural 

factors can create some problems during the 

developing years or stages of a child who is 

birthed through surrogacy.The task in this 

work is to draw attention to these factors with 

the aim to help strengthen the laws that will 

guide surrogacy arrangement in Nigeria and 

any other culture where such beliefs exist. But 

before that is done, there is a need do some 

conceptual clarifications to foster our 

understanding of the issue. This will be the 

foundation of the arguments to be projected 

here. 

What is Surrogacy? Etymologically, the term 

surrogacy is from the Latin word subrogane 

which means to replace, substitute or stand-in 

for2. It therefore, suggests that there is an 

original or natural process or thing to be 

replaced by another process or thing which is 

not original or natural. In a situation where 

what is to be substituted is not about 

naturalness, it can concern what is legitimate 

being replaced by what is not. It is this 

substitution and its attendant consequences 

that made surrogacy a moral and legal issue, 

especially because human beings are 

involved. 

The act of surrogacy involves helping 

someone to have a child or to meet the need 

of child bearing. It has being discovered that 

giving birth to a child is a natural duty of 

homosapiens and indeed other non-human 

animals. The duty of procreation to perpetuate 

young ones in other to populate the world for 

the continuity of human race is not something 

that societies and individuals take with levity 

especially in Africa. 

However, as important as it is to procreate, it 

is a fact that not all human beings have the 

wherewithal to do so, even when they are 

willing. Some men are born impotent; some 

lost it at a stage of life due to sickness, or 

accident. Also, there are human beings who 

are fertile in terms of having good eggs and 

sperms but who have other deficiencies 

necessary for procreation: ruptured womb, 

total absence of womb, feeble bodily system 

or structure, low but active egg sperm count, 

to mention but a few3 

Under the above situations, it seems the 

primary and important factors for procreation 

are present but the secondary and equally 

important factors are absent. But the good 

news is that these secondary factors can be 

borrowed, bought or negotiated from a willing 

person, thereby completing the process. What 

is to be borrowed, bought or negotiated here 

are another person’s body, womb and time 

while the sperm and the egg belong to original 

intending parents who are willing to have 

babies or a baby. 

Surrogacy then by interpretation is a form of 

contract between basically two or three 

people to carry out a form of biological duty or 

business. For Odidika Umeora et al (2014) 

“surrogate motherhood refers to a situation 

whereby a third party female is 

commissioned, or elect to carry a pregnancy 

on behalf of another couple, delivers a baby 

and hands the child over to the parents at 

birth”4.  

The act by the analysis above takes its name 

from the surrogate (substituted mother) 

mother who is the carrier of the embryo and 

the woman who birthed the child. It therefore, 

seems that it is only women who are 

surrogates, but it is possible to have 

circumstances that could make a man to be a 

surrogate. 



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Types of Surrogacy: The nature of the 

problem of a couple most of the times 

determines the type of surrogacy 

arrangement. Basically there are two types of 

surrogacy but there are three types of 

circumstances or conditions for adopting 

surrogacy. The first type of surrogacy is called 

traditional surrogacy and the second is called 

gestational surrogacy. 

Two people are involved in the traditional 

type. The contract is between a woman who is 

not a wife and a father who donates his sperm 

to the woman. In this case, the surrogate 

mother is equally the biological mother since 

her egg is the one being fertilized through 

Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). This process is 

at times called partial surrogacy5. In 

gestational surrogacy, three people are 

involved. In this process, the embryo is 

created first by fertilizing the egg of the 

commissioning mother with the sperm of the 

commissioning father through vitro-fertilization 

before transferring the embryo to the 

surrogate mother’s womb. In this process, the 

surrogate mother is not genetically linked to 

the child. It can also be referred to as full 

surrogacy6. In both types of surrogacy, there 

are moral, legal, economic, psychological, 

religious and socio-cultural implications. While 

some surrogacy arrangements are purely 

altruistic depending on the relationship 

already established between the surrogate 

mother and the commissioning couple, others 

are egoistic. Some surrogate mothers 

consented to carry the fetus for self-financing, 

and some commissioning mothers run from 

the pains of birth and motherhood; both 

circumstances are egoistic in these respects. 

Whereas surrogate mothers that agreed 

based on friendship and family relationship 

and commissioning fathers who  donate their 

sperm for free so that someone might enjoy 

the taste of motherhood are altruistic in that 

respect. 

One reason for engaging in surrogacy is the 

dictates of modern societies where some jobs 

dictate to women when not to be pregnant, 

this can make them transfer the duty of given 

birth to another woman. It has also being 

observed that some women want to avoid the 

pain of carrying a pregnancy for 9 months and 

the attendant painful process of birth. The 

third reason is the health and biological 

conditions of the intending couple. 

Surrogacy is therefore multifaceted in terms of 

the reasons adduced for its practice and the 

benefits that can accrue from it. The purpose 

of this work is to explore the religio-cultural 

dimension especially as it relates to certain 

metaphysical beliefs of the Yoruba people 

which may discourage the practice or affect 

the status of the child in that society. It is for 

this purpose that we shall turn to Yoruba 

cultural beliefs about motherhood and human 

personality. 

Yoruba Idea of Human Personality and the 

View about Life: The Yoruba people are 

majorly from the Western part of Nigeria, 

which is the most populous country in Africa. 

Nigeria comprises of about three major ethnic 

nationalities: Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa with 

sub-ethnic groups numbering about two 

hundred and fifty tribes. Outside Nigeria the 

Yoruba people are found in Brazil, Cuba, 

America and some West African countries like 

Republic of Benin and Togo7. A recent study 

estimates the population of the Yoruba people 

quite a bit over 25 million8. 

In Yoruba ontology, spirit is the life force 

which controls the lives of every occupant of 

the physical world. This belief does not 

exclude the belief in material life force but it 

places the spiritual in a vantage position. God, 

divinities, ancestors, men, animals and plants 

share in these mythical forces. While God is 

at the apex of life, the plants are at the base. 

Even non-living things like stones occasionally 

are possessed by spirits9. 



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Inspite of the differences between spirit and 

matter, Yoruba people believe that there is a 

harmonious relationship between them. This 

explains Chiedozie Okoro assertion that 

African philosophical metaphysics espouse a 

duality of being rather than dualism10. All 

these qualifications are attempts to show the 

interdependency of the material and the 

spiritual.This philosophy permeates other 

traditional thoughts especially those of 

destiny, personhood, which are the focus of 

this section. 

Components of Human Personality: In 

traditional Yoruba thought, a person is made 

up of both spiritual and physical parts. The 

physical part consists of ara (body),ese (leg), 

and okan(heart) while the spiritual part has 

emi (soul), ori (inner head), okan (heart) and 

ese (inner leg).11Though, it may be enough to 

mention ara, ori and emi as the major 

components but the Yoruba philosophy 

having found some functions for ese and okan 

in the development and realization of 

individual destiny, Balogun decided to include 

them in addition to the main ones. 

Notwithstanding the special function that is 

unique to each of these components their 

connections cannot be ignored. For example, 

ara, carries both the ori and the ese while emi 

is connected to the ara as the engine house, it 

is also connected to okan which is the 

physical representation of the mind. Ori and 

Ese and are connected as spiritual 

components. 

Ara (body) is the physical part of the human 

person which is responsible for movement 

and other physical activities. But it is 

essentially the house of emi (soul) which is 

responsible for life. Without emi, ara is 

useless especially as it relates to life and 

bodily movement. Ori (inner head) is the 

carrier of human destiny in conjunction with 

ese (inner leg). The uniqueness of Yoruba 

traditional thought about human personality is 

that these components have both spiritual and 

physical manifestation. Every individual in this 

regard is both a physical and a spiritual being. 

It is for the above reason that Okoro 

Chiedozie describes African metaphysics of 

existence as a duality, rather than a dualism. 

While dualism is the belief in two separate 

entities, duality is the belief in two distinct but 

inseparable entities. However, from the 

foregoing, the belief in human personality can 

be categorized as tripartite conception 

because it consists of the natural (ara), the 

supernatural/psychic(okan, ese) and the 

spiritual (emi).Ese and okan are categorized 

as supernatural here because they have both 

natural and spiritual manifestations12. 

Whatever anyone is or will become can only 

be explained by both physical and spiritual 

factors. 

The idea of destiny in Yoruba thought just like 

that of human personality mirrored a tripartite 

approach. There is Akunleyan (that which one 

kneeled down to choose), Akunlegba (that 

which is bestowed on one while kneeling 

down) and Adayeba (which is the destiny 

(opportunities) of one’s immediate 

environment in the world). So, what a person 

will become depends on these three sorts of 

destiny13. Akunlegba represents the destiny of 

the body which is not a product of choice. It is 

what the maker of man or nature embedded in 

the nature of the physical body. Akunleyan is 

the choice an individual makes for 

himself/herself. This is the one that bestowed 

responsibility on the human person. Adayeba 

is the social destiny or the opportunities 

presented by the society. It is this one that 

connects all choices of different individual who 

found themselves in the same environment. 

The destiny(happiness or sadness), 

opportunities that are shared as a member of 

a family, organization or society. In other 

words, the destiny bestowed on a man and 

the one he chose as a person will only be 



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realized if the opportunities in the society are 

favourable to the others too.  

From the above analysis, it can be argued 

that Yoruba traditional philosophy of life is 

characterized with interconnectedness of 

existence. It is for this reasonthat Yoruba 

people live a communal life and are utilitarian 

in moral thinking14.Living together as a family 

with the interests of majority taken into 

consideration in every step of life isat the 

fulcrum of Yoruba people’s social life. 

A Yoruba Perspective on the Status of a 

Child in Surrogate Arrangement: The 

robustness of debates on surrogacy is not in 

doubt.Nevertheless, Nigeria which housesthe 

largest population of the Yoruba has not taken 

a stand on any of the above consideration. As 

a matter of fact, the issues in surrogacy have 

not been placed in the centre of any 

discussion on motherhood and the birth 

process, though the practice exists. 

This work therefore,centered its focus on the 

religio-cultural or metaphysical implications of 

surrogacy which is hardly discussed in 

previous debates either in the West or in 

Africa. The first belief to be considered that 

borders on the argument about ownership is 

the belief that blood is sacred. No wonder the 

saying: ‘blood is thicker than water’ is used to 

express the bond between family members. 

The question of ownership is necessary 

because of the great importance placed on 

blood in Yoruba traditional thought. To an 

average Yoruba person, the life of an animal 

or person is in the blood. In accordance to this 

belief, the woman that smearedher blood on 

the child at birth is the right owner of the child. 

This concept is called ikunle abiyamo (the 

pain of motherhood or the authority of 

motherhood).Mothers in Yoruba culture 

always invoke this authority of motherhood to 

make demand or pray for their children.15 

If a woman says emi ni mo da eje si lori (I am 

the one that pour blood on him/her) she is 

making a claim of ownership and therefore 

authority of parenthood is morally and 

spiritually conferred. Another saying of note 

here is inu mi ni mo fi bi e meaning I bore you 

from my womb. The authority of the smeared 

blood and womb invigorate the philosophy of 

duality of existence subscribed to by the 

Yoruba people. In this wise, the internal and 

the external factors of procreation is only 

complete in the surrogate mother rather than 

the commissioning mother. While the womb 

represents the physical body, the blood 

represents the spiritual content of 

reproductive process. The argument here 

differs from the Western paradigm where the 

egg and sperm which are physical without the 

internal spiritual content impose ownership of 

the child on the commissioning mother. 

Nevertheless, the legality of a contract signed 

between the surrogate and the commissioning 

couple is not in doubt, and it must be added 

that Yoruba tradition places emphasis on the 

honouring of an agreement between two 

people. Yet, when the chips are down, when 

the child has any spiritual problem that 

warrant solution through the mother, the 

surrogate mother will be the first point of call. 

This leads us to the second issue which is the 

belief about oro idile (family tradition or 

taboo). In every traditional Yoruba families, 

there are cultural rites peculiar to each. These 

rites or family traditions are performed at 

various stages of development of a person: 

from birth, during naming ceremony, during 

marriage ceremony and finally at death. 

These rites have deep spiritual meaning in 

terms of protecting a person from evil. In most 

cases, they have their foundation in ancestral 

covenant which are sealed with family blood. 

In surrogacy, it then becomes difficult to know 

the effectiveness of these rites in a person 

who only belong to a family partially. Since a 

product of surrogate arrangement has no 



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blood relation with the surrogate mother but 

has relation in terms of being the one that 

smeared blood on the child. So, which 

ancestral covenant will take eminence in 

surrogacy is difficult to determine. 

It is not surprising given the factor 

interconnected existence that in consulting an 

oracle about a child’s destiny, the soothsayer 

(Babalawo) always asks for the name of the 

child and the child’s mother. This is predicated 

on the belief that one cannot be mistaken 

about who a child’s mother is, because the 

paternity of a child is uncertain except 

determined through DNA. There is therefore, 

a great affinity between a person’s destiny 

and that of the mother16. It then becomes 

difficult to know which mother’s name will be 

presented since in surrogacy two mothers are 

involved. But we feel that the authority of the 

womb and the smearing of blood may also be 

applicable here. 

Ifa oracle which is the religious book of the 

Yoruba people also mentioned that “a child 

who fails to suck the mother’s breast milk, will 

find it extremely difficult, if not totally 

impossible, to have the type of spiritual 

elevations comparable to those of hi/her 

colleague who had the benefit of sucking their 

mother’s breast milk17. If a child lost the 

mother at birth s/he has lost the privilege of 

breast sucking. Such situation may also occur 

if a mother is HIV positive or having any other 

disease that can be transferred through body 

fluid. Surrogacy itself presents such situation 

if the baby is transferred immediately to the 

commissioning couple after birth. Though, the 

Western science takes the DNA and genes as 

the determinant of personality, the Yoruba 

people do not dwell on this physical attributes 

alone, the spiritual dimension of birth and 

growing processes are of utmost importance 

or else one ceases to be a ‘normal’ or ‘full 

person’. And this is where surrogacy becomes 

a problem in Yoruba philosophy. In the 

Shakespearean novel titled Macbeth, 

Macbeth who is the hero in this play boasts to 

Macduff that he cannot be killed by Macduff 

because the gods already told him that 

Macbeth cannot be killed by any man born of 

a woman. Macduff replied him that technically 

he was not born (of a woman) in the natural 

way but was given birth to through a cesarean 

operation18. This made all the three factors 

that could lead to the death of Macbeth 

complete. Macbeth dies in the battle between 

him and Macduff. It shows that some of the 

metaphysical beliefs about birth, motherhood 

and life in general have serious implications 

for the status of the surrogate mother and the 

child who is a result of surrogate 

arrangement. This is in line with Mary 

Douglas’s assertion that the “understanding of 

religious symbols helps in selecting 

experiences for concentrated attention”. For 

her, this will further help in the mysterious 

coordination of brain and body.19 

Conclusion: The strength of the link 

developed through gestation and birth seems 

stronger than that of genetic link between the 

fetus and the commissioning parents. Yoruba 

seems to realize that carrying an embryo and 

giving birth give stronger emotional and 

spiritual ties from the surrogate mother to the 

child than the one developed through genetic 

means by the non-pregnant commissioning 

biologic-mother. According to Nancy 

Reame(1991:153), ACOG (American College 

of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) in 1983 

set up a committee on Ethics and part of the 

recommendations that lend credence to the 

Yoruba position is that the surrogate mother 

should be treated as the natural mother20. The 

committee however arrived at this due to the 

fact that surrogate mothers deserve autonomy 

on their bodies, health and the need to 

prevent negative psychological health risk 

Various researches (Kennel &McGrath, 2002 

and Palmer, 2002)21, 22have also corroborated 

that biological bonds are established between 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2017; 8(3):18-25 

 
 

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mothers and her fetuses during pregnancy 

through the following means: 

a. Oxytocin homone 

b. Skin-to-skin contact 

c. Eye gazing 

d. Breast feeding 

All these socio-cultural beliefs and scientific 

facts show thatthere is a form of bonding 

between mothers and children and these 

factors are complete only in the surrogate 

mother. And one ought to be concerned about 

the disruption of this boding which surrogacy 

attempt to cause by acknowledging the 

commissioning parents over and above the 

surrogate parent. The belief in this paper is 

that such acknowledgement will create a kind 

of genealogical bewilderment,that is, a 

confused family structure for the child which 

may affect the child’s development. 

So, the question: Is parenthood grounded in 

biology, contractual agreement or religio-

cultural arrangement, will be better addressed 

if the answer considered both the biologic and 

religio-cultural factors concerned. These 

factors in the thinking of this work are 

complete in surrogate motherhood. It is not 

then out of place to recommend that any legal 

or moral framework must be seen to maintain 

good relationship between the surrogate 

mother and the commissioning couple in order 

to respect the dignity and welfare of the child 

which enhances physical development, and to 

avoid spiritual underdevelopment of the child. 

Ifthere is no such good relationship between 

the parties, and economic consideration is the 

reason for agreeing to be a surrogate mother, 

it could lead to extortion when situation arises 

in future; where the help of the surrogate 

mother is needed as it affects the child’s 

destiny and development in life. Any legal 

framework of agreement should envisage this 

and take care of it. 

 

Conflict of interest: None 

Acknowledgement: I thank Rainer Ebert for 

the information he placed on Facebook about 

this edition. Grateful heart! 

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