There is a significant ethical difference between commodifying the work of the surrogate woman and any other worker because of the type of services they sell. The conflict is caused by the fact that a woman signs documents that she agrees to gestate a fetus and give birth to a child instead of another female. After the child is born, they are taken from the biological mother and given to the couple who bought the newborn (Vaughn, p. 397). As a result, the surrogate mother sells the baby to whom she gave birth, which cannot be regarded as an ethical action from the perspective of morality. It destroys the perception of the mother’s connection with the child she bore and devalues parental love.
There are opponents of the idea that surrogacy is not ethical who claim that it is a service or commodity. It is possible to define the commodity as a “thing, which is properly treated in conformity with the market norms” (Anderson, p. 71). For instance, Anderson’s position is that there is no distinction between working for another person’s profit if there is adequate consent from the individual. She writes that several significant reasons justify commercial surrogacy, including the “shortage of children available for adoption” and the fundamental right of people to procreate and freedom of contract (Anderson, p. 71). The peculiar detail is that the surrogate mother is called “a labor of love” by the supporters of this perspective, and her actions are regarded as altruistic (Anderson, p. 71). At the same time, Anderson does not appeal to the moral side of selling the newborn child based on the contract the surrogate woman signs. A human being is sold to people for money, which is similar to human trafficking in its essence. It allows stating that the argument about the acceptability of commodifying surrogacy is unethical.