Exercise:

Formulate how different kinds of feminist legal theorists might respond to a proposed bill to legalize surrogate parenting. The bill would eliminate any potential criminal law penalties affecting a promise by a woman to become impregnated by a man or by implantation of donated sperm in exchange for monetary compensation and a promise to deliver a child conceived this way to a contracting partner. The bill also would make such contracts legally enforceable; a woman who changes her mind and wishes to obtain an abortion or to keep the child produced under the contract would be subjected to civil remedies, potentially including monetary damages and/or specific performance. What positions would be taken by an equal treatment feminist? A special treatment feminist? A post-modern feminist? A feminist seeking to transcend the equality/difference debate?

For discussions on this subject from feminist and other perspectives, see our discussion of the Baby M case. For further reading, see Lori B. Andrews, Surrogate Motherhood: The Challenge for Feminists; 16 Law, Med. & Health Care 72 (1988); Anita L. Allen, The Socio-Economic Struggle for Equality: The Black Surrogate Mother, 8 Harv. Blackletter J. 17 (1991); Margaret Jane Radin, Market-Inalienability, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 1849 (1987); Frances Olsen, The Sex of Law, in The Politics of Law 691-707 (David Kairys ed., third edition, Basic Books: New York 1998).