For what it’s worth, my favorite way of describing libertarianism is that you should be free to do whatever you want, even if you’re being stupid, so long as you’re not infringing on the rights of others.
It’s not pithy, but it captures what I wrote in 2018: “I personally don’t like drugs, gambling, cigarettes, and prostitution, but it would never occur to me to support government coercion to prevent others from making their own decisions with their own bodies, property, and money.”
And this is a good way to begin today’s column about surrogacy.
I’m motivated to address the issue because of this tweet I saw yesterday.
My first reaction was that I would get a surrogate if I was a woman. Having watched three kids get born, it does not look like fun.
But perhaps I’m just a wimp.
My second reaction was knee-jerk libertarianism. Meghan Murphy certainly should have the right to criticize Lily Collins and Charlie McDowell, but she shouldn’t be able to use the coercive power of government to interfere with the couple contracting with a woman to carry their child.
I made that argument back in 2015, but let’s look at what some other people have written.
…is being able to have a baby via a surrogate – even when the surrogate is fully consenting, properly compensated and cared for – really a human right? Could the surrogacy industry, which is built on the commodification of the female body, ever be truly free of exploitation? The short answer…is no. In places where for-profit surrogacy is legal, …disadvantaged women are being turned into wombs for hire… There is also never much consideration for how a surrogate mother (either financially motivated or volunteer) may feel when the time comes for her to hand over the baby she just birthed. …well-off women who simply do not want to be burdened by pregnancy, are choosing to pay for surrogacy services as a way of accessing parenthood. With “my body, my choice” feminists enthusiastically embracing surrogacy as an act of empowerment and inclusion, the abusive practice of outsourcing pregnancy to underprivileged and marginalised women is becoming widely accepted… Supporters of surrogacy, just like supporters of prostitution, claim that monetary incentive does not equal coercion and that “womb work” is work like any other. ..Is the inside of a woman’s body really an acceptable workplace?
Now let’s look a different perspective.
In an article for the Dispatch, Elizabeth Nolan Brown explains that surrogacy is a good thing. Here’s some of what she wrote.
Surrogacy is good for families. …Heterosexual couples struggling to conceive. Same-sex couples without the machinery to make it happen independently. Women for whom medical issues make pregnancy dangerous. All are situations where surrogacy could help. And helping those who desperately want children to have them is something worth celebrating, even if it doesn’t lead to a dramatic baby bump. …it’s also good for the women who serve as surrogates. For one thing, it helps these women—who may already have children of their own to support—earn a substantial amount of money for doing something that simultaneously benefits other women and families. …some surrogates do it mainly for the money. …But it doesn’t follow that these women literally had no other choices. Just because some can’t imagine serving as a surrogate doesn’t mean that no one would find it an appealing option. To me, a year’s salary for taking care of myself and a growing fetus seems a whole lot better than, say, a year of working retail. …If we accept that women are mentally capable and morally culpable—and I hope we all do—then we must allow them to decide for themselves whether their personal ethics permits surrogacy and whether the risks involved are worth it. It’s insulting to suggest women need big government to protect them from making their own decisions.
I obviously agree with Ms. Brown over Ms. Bindel.
This issue is very akin to the debate on organ sales. I believe adults should be able to make their own decisions on what’s best, whether they are selling their kidneys or renting their wombs.
Some friends on the left fret about exploitation of the poor, but they fail to appreciate that a low-income woman’s only alternative to surrogacy might be to take a sweatshop job that is more dangerous with less pay. And I say that as someone who defends sweatshops because those jobs are better than the grinding poverty of subsistence agriculture.
As Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, capitalism and freedom are about giving people the opportunity to constantly improve their lives.
Dan Mitchell is co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and Chairman of the Board. He is an expert in international tax competition and supply-side tax policy.
