Follow-Up to WATERtalk Introduction
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 at 1 PM ET
With Grace Y. Kao
My Body, Their Baby: A Progressive Vision for Surrogacy
(Stanford University Press, 2023)
The video can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaXJd78YRMw
WATER thanks Dr. Grace Kao for her book My Body, Their Baby: A Progressive Vision for Surrogacy in which she explores and explains the complex question of surrogacy from a feminist Christian perspective. She treats the arguments for and against surrogacy in an even-handed way, and she describes in detail her own experience as a surrogate.
INTRODUCTION:
Mary E. Hunt’s introduction to Dr. Kao follows:
Happily, Dr. Grace Y. Kao is no stranger to WATER. She has done other WATERtalks—in 2016 on her Introduction to Asian American Ethics and in 2019 with Rebecca Todd Peters on their book Encountering the Sacred: Feminist Reflections on Women’s Lives. So welcome back, Grace, this time with My Body, Their Baby: A Progressive Christian Vision for Surrogacy. It is a fitting combination of sorts of the other two. Her analysis of surrogacy combines elements of Asian American ethics and the ethical topic of surrogacy is finally about very sacred encounters with women’s reproductive experiences.
Dr. Grace Kao is Professor of Ethics and the inaugural Bishop Roy I. Sano Chair in Pacific and Asian American Theology at Claremont School of Theology. Remembering Methodist Bishop Roy Sano from his days as professor and as head of the Pacific and Asian American Center for Theology and Strategies at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, it is wonderful that you carry on in his name.
Grace completed her BA and MA at Stanford University, and her PhD at Harvard University. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics, and currently serves on the managing boards of the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) and the Pacific, Asian and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM) network which we consider a sister group to WATER.
On a personal note, Dr. Kao, a lay Presbyterian, reports that she has won 5 teaching awards and is also the first Asian American women to be tenured and promoted to full professor at Claremont School of Theology. She lives in Orange County, California with her husband, two biracial teenage sons, and one pandemic cat. I follow her stunningly talented sons’ careers so I know she has a full and busy life. All the more reason why I thank you in advance, Grace, for your work with us today and for your commitment to “a progressive Christian vision for surrogacy” which helps to understand other complex and now increasingly threatened issues.
Note: These notes are intended to accompany the video of the session so that the reader can hear Dr. Kao’s own highly nuanced and precise words for maximum accuracy.
SUMMARY:
Dr. Kao distinguished two perspectives on surrogacy, one that it brings joy, the other that is a dystopian nightmare. She described her own experience of Gestational Surrogacy, distinguished between Gift and Payment approaches, and laid out the contours of the current legal status of surrogacy in the US which is regulated state by state. There is no global regulation of surrogacy.
To those who worried that she would bond with the baby and not want to relinquish it, she affirmed that she bonded in fact with the intended parents. That bonding continues with the child now recognizing Grace as the mother who carried her to term, not to be confused with the intended parents who are raising her.
She addressed medicalization of pregnancy, as well as the often-limited choice presented between surrogacy and adoption as if adoption were a one-size-fits all solution. She wisely affirmed that there are certain conversations that don’t help on this topic—with those who think sex and reproduction must always go together, and those who do not take experience qua experience seriously as data for theo-ethics. She pointed to some of the biblical examples of surrogacy or the equivalent.
Reproductive generosity is a way to think of surrogacy.
A Reproductive Justice framework which has been offered by Black women scholars and activists—having the right to all the children one wishes to have; having the right to have no children at all; having the right to raise all one’s children in healthy and affordable circumstances—is a good starting point for fruitful conversation and the making of laws. There is no consensus among Reproductive Justice adherents on surrogacy.
DISCUSSION:
Many people thanked Dr. Grace Kao for sharing her experience and expertise on this topic. She deepened our understanding of surrogacy and took account of many different perspectives. Some of the issues raised include:
- The problem was not legality, but rather accessibility. Laws that come with set up boundaries are not practical. “Trust Women” should determine whether women have a child and it should extend to surrogacy.
- Essential to the discussion of surrogacy: women of color aren’t being exploited so much as excluded from the surrogacy market.
- Grace Kao bonded with the parents rather than the child during her surrogate pregnancy. In fact, a large number of women don’t build a bond with their babies during pregnancy. Studies show that surrogates, who feel like their own family is already complete, build a stronger bond with the intended parents.
- Would the intended parents do it again or have they completed their family now?
The answer is they don’t have any embryos left, even if they wanted to try surrogacy again. Their family seems to be complete now. - In some countries, like Canada or Australia, surrogacy is legal but cannot be commercial. Nevertheless, most Surrogates all over the world receive some kind of compensation.
- Was the Virgin Mary a Surrogate? Much to discuss about this in biblical studies.
- “Trust Women” only works with informed consent. In some countries, women prefer surrogacy-work over alternative jobs; some even get more money for it, some making even more than their husbands. Some say that surrogacy for the sole purpose of earning money is not true consent, but this implies that these women cannot consent to anything.
- Studies show that there are better psychological outcomes for children if there is no secrecy about their origins and birth mothers. Dr. Grace Kao’s friend’s child calls her ‘tummy mummy’. Being honest and open with children is very important.
- A participant spoke about forced sterilization. Dr. Grace Kao named financial inducement as the problem. There are also communities where sterilization was forced because of the belief some people were not worthy of reproducing.
- Surrogacy is under fire. In the new Trump Administration is a national ban possible? The biggest concern is about IVF and abortion laws, not surrogacy. But interstate surrogacy will become more dangerous. A ban wouldn’t stop but only drive practices unsafely underground and increase stigma.
- How can ritual be part of Dr. Grace Kao’s work? Church communities should accept surrogate born children. One way to normalize several-parent families is through baptism or child dedication which includes mention of surrogacy. The handover in the birthing room can also be ritualized.
RESOURCES:
Please consult GUIDE for a very helpful outline of the volume:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w1_qRNLfWUXmIB5pbX7XW2dDE162y04b/view?usp=sharing
This is a link to the Power Point presentation that illustrates Grace Kao’s talk:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zC-M_NuDeNYbgKU-2wUeaDXDYYXaOfsM/view?usp=sharing
These are articles on surrogacy including some work by Dr. Kao:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/catholic-families-navigate-surrogacy-faith-and-spiritual-discernment : “Catholic families navigate surrogacy with faith and spiritual discernment”; July 20, 2024, by Camillo Barone
“New Article Offers LGBTQ+ Perspectives in Debate Over Reproductive Surrogacy”; September 20, 2024, by Phoebe Carstens
https://religionnews.com/2023/10/06/in-my-body-their-baby-a-scholar-explores-the-theology-of-surrogacy/ : “In ‘My Body, Their Baby,’ a scholar explores the theology of surrogacy”; October 6, 2023, by Bob Smietana
https://www.drgracekao.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/My.-Body-Their-Baby_Discussion-Questions_Aug-7.pdf : “Reading and Discussion Guide”; August 7, 2023 by Grace Y. Kao
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WATER thanks Grace Kao for this helpful, courageous work especially in the current political climate. We await her next project and her return to WATER!
