著者

柳原 良江

出版者

実践女子学園

雑誌

下田歌子研究所年報 女性と文化 = Women and Culture - The Annual Bulletin of the Shimoda Utako Institute

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2, pp.34-51, 2016-03-10

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Since the creation of conducting modern surrogacy in the U.S. in 1976 the method has been criticized as baby selling and making use of women as a tool. On the other hand, the supporters of conducting surrogacy regard it as a fruit of scientific technology, and considered any problemsresulting from it as negligible factors. Similarly, the supporting opinions constructed logics which use a concept of “women’s reproductive rights”. These words mainly connote the “right to privacy” as an underlining idea of abortion rights in the U.S., and “reproductive health/rights” advocated at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. With these connotations, these concepts were employed to support surrogacy as a basis that women have the right to choose whether or not they conceive by their own will. Contrarily, in Japan, the concept of “women’s reproductive rights” had its meaning stretched to include a right to family formation. This new interpretation was employed as a basis to the support of surrogacy. This broad interpretation was realized by promoting prejudice towards surrogate mothers who were labeled as deviations of regular human beings, and discriminative attitudes toward the surrogate women’s risks of life and health which were also considered less important. Recently, the expansion of understanding from the U. S., relies on the fact that conceiving babies is meaningless; therefore, the support for surrogacy relies on a recognition which is constructed with the use of sex discrimination against women.