Surrogacy: The Apotheosis of Control

Abstract

The qualitative study the results of which will be presented in this paper was carried out over the course of 2019 using the snowball sampling method to involve 60 women aged between 30 and 45. The aim was to gain insights into and better understand the social imaginary around medically assisted reproductive technologies and in particular around the issue of surrogacy; we wanted to find out what the interviewees knew about this matter and what their ideas were about the figure and role of the mother – intended and/or surrogate – and about the use of the surrogate mother’s body in going through with a pregnancy on behalf of others. The aim of the study is to further investigate the results gathered in a quantitative study carried out in 2017 (Di Nicola, Lonardi, Viviani, 2019, 2018) in order to further the considerations made previously. The data gathered show that surrogacy is characterized by a strong control mechanism implemented by both the intended parents and the surrogate mother, albeit in different forms. This method of procreation highlights how human factors and unforeseen events on a biological, physical and emotional plane become channelled into a process where control has supremacy and constitutes an attempt to bypass the natural processes brought into play by conception and pregnancy.