dc.description.abstract | The current paper starts out by describing the emotional construct of childbirth and the
importance of biological ownership of a progeny. It develops arguments both in favor and
against the notion of sharing genetic material with a child as being a desirable trait in the society
and as well as the repercussions of the same. It attempts to bring out the consideration that law
provides such couples and validates that with the near fundamental law of allowing rational
beings to procreate and raise families. Further the argument goes on to establish a case for
surrogacy in the modern society, by chalking out both commercial as well as altruistic
surrogacy. The paper attempts to bring the demerits of the altruism underlined in such contracts
by pointing out cases of blatant exploitation in purely altruistic contracts and then goes on to
understand the notion of the virtuousness ascribed to such underpinnings. The text then
develops a construct describing the methodology of financial remuneration and the
considerations thereof and brings out the inherent contrast in the broadcasted message in the
popular discourse and the methodology of structuring such contracts, thus finalizing on an
opinion that Surrogacy contracts are by nature exploitative, by not replenishing the utility lost
by the surrogate and only attempting to give a notional reward for producing a product deemed
acceptable by the parents. The model then goes ahead and develops the case even further by
underlining the hidden costs in surrogacy and the manner in which they present themselves
unto the surrogate. The text provides validation for the fact that surrogates aren’t in fact aware
of the utility payoff, and make these decisions in a system of information asymmetry which is
bound to end being exploitative for the surrogate. The paper finally presents a mathematical
model to validate the same and also tries to develop a game theoretic argument underlining the
fact that at the end of a commercial contract the clinic is the sure winner and then are the
intended parents and the surrogate is the least benefitted party in the contract, both by virtue of
investing the most prior to the initiation of any payoffs and by virtue of shielding the maximum
amount of risk amongst all the parties. The paper underlines the need for modification in the
existing legal framework to ensure such exploitation doesn’t become a rampant practice
throughout the country and to ensure that parties that are making decisions out of anxiety and
in a system of imperfect information are made aware of the consequences beforehand, in the
diction most amenable to their present conditions. | en_US |