It is said that, the basic principle of such tradition is that humans communicate through symbols, which are a common currency through which a sense of self is created through interaction with others. Mead's theory neatly avoids the trap of positing a sense of self that is constructed entirely through symbols and society by making a distinction between two different selves: "I" which is the unsocialized self; the font of individual desires and needs, and "me," the socialized self, the self within society. (p. 184) Elliot rightly identifies the flaws of symbolic interactionism: namely, the obsession with rationalism and the wholesale disavowal of the emotional aspects of the self. The American sociologist Irving Goffman would seem to articulate a rather more fluid version of selfhood. Irving's self is constantly engaged in per formative space, routinely playing specific roles within particular scenes of social interaction. (2001) This conceptualization of self too is not without its flaws, for although Irving maintains that there is a self behind the masks, it is not this self but rather its per formative role-playing that appears to be analyzed in Irving's theory.

Abortion

           The mind is the ultimate resource and the only thing that is truly scarce in absolute terms. Abortion thus adversely affects society by both reducing the quantity of minds available and by exacerbating negative externalities. Thus, abortion is not in the public interest on account of both of these reasons and, therefore, it cannot be a just or genuinely beneficial public policy. (Germain, p. 275)

           Theologians will argue that killing innocent human beings is moral turpitude since an irreplaceable soul is lost. However, abortion is also a huge social loss in an economic sense. Society loses minds and the ideas they would have, as well as the resources that are siphoned off in order to kill and process them. But the murdered lose the opportunity to live and enjoy life, and all that living entails. Also, many have to bear the pain of being burned to death by saline solution or chopped up into pieces by sharp instruments, and would hardly be consoled by the fact that their remains will go to benefit medical science or rent seekers. The key element is that an innocent life has been taken that might have developed into the next Einstein, Edison, Salk, Jefferson, or Beethoven. (1970)

           Some believe that even though there may be life, or potential life, or however one wants to refer to the fetus, that by denying a woman the right to an abortion is denying her control of her body. Being a woman myself, I am obviously against people trying to control women or their bodies. But the fetus is a completely separate life from the woman. It has a completely different blood type and genetic code; it is not just part of the mother's body. It is temporarily residing there, and birth is just the change of residence from an already living, active person. Just because the unborn is dependent on the mother for nine months, does that give anyone the right to choose to end its life?

           Being dependent on others should not deprive a helpless human being the fundamental right to live, as we do not base humanness on whether another person is around to take care of that life. Trying to justify abortion by arguing that the unborn does not have this right is a form of discrimination based on age and the fact that they cannot speak for themselves. There is also an issue about child abuse, that unwanted children will be unloved and abused.

           Most people would agree that unjustified and unexcused homicide is morally wrong, but many disagree about whether abortion is homicide. If abortion were homicide, then one would be bound in conscience to seek a justification, or at least an excuse, for homicide in every act of abortion. By contrast, if abortion were not homicide, but only the medical termination of a pregnancy, then an act of abortion would not have a fundamental moral significance; the practice would then be justifiable by less fundamental reasons.

           It follows that particular arguments for or against the morality of abortion are secondary to the question of whether abortion is homicide. Therefore a prior question to the issue of the morality of abortion is whether embryos and fetuses are possible victims of a homicide, or moral persons. Grisez's argument buttressed ontologically by Aristotle convincingly shows that to kill the fetus is to kill the baby, to kill the child, to kill the young adult, to kill the adult, and thus to kill the older person. For the full value of the person is in every stage of development. Or as Aristotle could say, "killing the potentiality certainly kills the actuality."

Surrogacy

           Since motherhood is so personal, and each woman experiences pregnancy differently, is it appropriate to objectify a woman’s rights by theorizing her body and her decision to act as a surrogate? Shanley claims, “Contract pregnancy raises issues that are important not only for the children, mothers, and fathers who are directly touched by them, but also for those concerned with the meaning of new reproductive practices for the common life we shape together through public discourse and law” (p. 88).
          

           The problem with Shanley’s use of this argument to present the two sides is that it presumes that the title used to describe someone matters, and it makes it seem that all people use one term to refer to a mother; anyone called a mother is exactly the same as all of the other mothers. Mom, mother, mama: these are all words used to describe the same sort of person in the English language. Many adopted children think of themselves as having two mothers, a custodial mother and a biological mother. While a title can offer power and privilege, a title is not always necessary to perform the same actions. Such opinion presented by Shanley is caught up in an argument that will not change the situation and would never be made about a male’s role in raising a child if such situation is allowable to happen.

           Such argument is not that some titles do not offer more power or privilege, but that in the case of surrogacy, two individual women may have the same title (surrogate mother or whatever you want to call it) but have different feelings about the role. One woman may feel very detached from the baby and consider her a baby holding area for some people she barley knows, while another woman may feel much attached to the baby and the biological parents because she is a relative or family friend. Each woman will feel differently about each surrogacy situation because the social context is so important.

           A contentious division that Shanley finds interesting to describe in the surrogacy controversy is whether or not contracts between the surrogate mother and the biological parents, for the right to possess a baby, should be binding. As Shanley presents it, there are two sides to this question as well. Shanley describes the pro-contract-enforcement side as regarding “a woman as having a right to enter a contractual arrangement to bear a child and receive money for her service, and the prohibition or nonenforcement of pregnancy contracts as illegitimate infringements on a woman’s autonomy and self-determination” (p. 87). The con-contract enforcement side Shanley describes as seeing “contract pregnancy as inherently oppressive to the child-bearing woman, particularly if she is forced to fulfill the contract against her will” (p. 87).

           For some parents employing a surrogate, a legally prepared document explaining that if a surrogate decides to keep the baby she must repay all monies given to her and used for medical expenses, including a common going price for sperm, would be an appropriate pre-conception measure. Regardless of contract, however, women who think that they want to be surrogates should be required to seek psychological counseling, as a way of helping them make an informed decision during and after the pregnancy, and as a way of handling the emotions involved.

           The easy decision is not always the best decision. Granted, the legality of surrogacy would be easier if either side presented by Shanley won and either every surrogacy would require a binding contract, or contracts would not be allowed. However, an extreme view is going to be impractical to enforce because of the sheer variance among individual surrogacy conditions.

           Each baby is a unique individual who results from a unique pregnancy. The surrogate mother must put herself and her health first; as is common practice for pregnant mother, but the biological parents have their unborn baby as a first priority. Thus, the unknowns of pregnancy can create consequences for two parties of people who have different primary concerns. Theorizing about surrogacy and a woman’s body will not help “the child-bearing woman” (p. 88) whom Shanley claims to have at the center of her analysis. Shanley’s critique of two sides of a surrogacy debate simply encourages the theoretical debate to continue without providing any help for the parties involved.

           Womanhood has been degraded so often with gender discrimination, wife battery, sexual harassment, rape, pornography, prostitution, contraceptives with their callous side effects, genital mutilation, etc. Surrogacy is another attempt in this direction. The womb of a woman, as asserted Morenike Taire, is not like a cupboard or a refrigerator where you keep something and come back to find it as you left it. The unusually high rate of infertility among women nowadays is an outcome of the rigorous sex they have been exposed to from their teenage years, contraceptive consumption with its unsung fallouts, and multiple abortions allowed to foreclose other options open to combat infertility that would not subject the human origin to subject of vulgar determinism. Human life is still sacred. The basis of IVF, surrogate motherhood and sundry practices is allergic to morality. Further developments would only inspire other immoralities. We have to make them a tough procedure to follow. We need to construct an order before crises impose one as a necessity. By then many waters of life may have passed irrevocably under the bridge.

References:

Elliot, Anthony. ‘Concepts of the Self’, Malden: Blackwell Publishers Polity Press, 2001. pp. 184

Germain Grisez, Abortion: the Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments, New York: World Publishing           Company, 1970; Corpus Books, 1972, p. 275

Shanley, Mary Lyndon. “Surrogate mothers” and women’s freedom: A critique of contracts of human           reproduction. In Bodies Perfect, Bodies Everlasting, Bodies Bought and Sold, pp.87-106

Damola, Awoyokun (Monday, September 29, 2003) Perils of IVF and surrogate motherhood