Reproduction and Law – The Limits of Patient Agency

Tue 8 October 2019

Alison Richard Building

Elizabeth Chloe Romanis
'Artificial Wombs and Choosing an Alternative to Gestation'

It is frequently claimed that artificial wombs have the capacity to alleviate the burdens placed exclusively on the female body in reproduction. In this paper I explain how artificial wombs might meaningfully shift perceptions of acceptable risk in gestation, and lead to a demand for access to an alternative to later term pregnancy. Further, I highlight some of potential legal hurdles in England and Wales that might limit pregnant people's ability to choose an alternative to their gestation if artificial wombs become reality.



Dr Christina Weis
'Fetus, surrogate or intending parent – who is a patient in commercial surrogacy arrangements?'

Commercial surrogacy is the arrangement whereby a woman, the ‘surrogate mother’, agrees to gestate a child for another person/s, the intending parent/s, to raise in exchange for an agreed financial compensation.
The contractual nature of surrogacy arrangements turn ‘surrogate mothers’ into reproductive service providers, and raises a set of questions: who is a patient in surrogacy arrangements? What are the limits of the surrogate’s bodily autonomy and her agency in making decisions around the pregnancy? What are the limits of the intending parents control and agency in making decisions around the pregnancy they are commissioning?

An event organised by Health, Medicine and Agency Research Network