Reflection (2)

        After a semester's writing, I feel like that there are a lot of things in my issue paper that I need to revise.

        The first one is my position toward the surrogate mother. At first, I was at the position that against its legalization, but now I think I will change it to support for it. The reason why I change my mind is that according to the response that other classmates told me, if we see it is too complex and difficult to do and thus we give up, it is not a solution. It is going bad if we don't face, solve, and legalize it. Therefore, we should be positive and eager to improve this situation. As a result, I change my mind, my position will change to support it.

        The second, I will rearrange my all annotation, since my position is change, the original order is not proper anymore. Also, some of the words and sentences in my annotations will be revised, and thus be more suitable for my title, position, and then be more sensible and reasonable.

        The third one is that the meaning of surrogate mother should also be redefined. After the whole semester's research, I find that the "surrogate mother" may be not proper for us to call those mothers, or we should create a more suitable meaning for "surrogate mother". Therefore, I will write it into my article and give a detailed explanation in my revision paper.

        I think I know much better about surrogate mother after the whole semester and also learn more. I will do my best to write a more reasonable and better research paper in the end. Through these days, I think I have a progress in my writings and also learn to have an ability to write expository paper, I really glad about it. In the end, I hope my research paper will be as perfect as possible to make all you enjoy it!

(revised) Annotation 4: Surrogacy: Complicated and Unsolved Problems in Law and Morality, should we legalize it in Taiwan?

        As I mentioned in my Annotation 1, I think the method of surrogate mother may be a morally wrong practice. It relates to too many problems concerning to our lives: the surrogate mothers' health, moral problems, the definition of the mother, the position of the surrogate mother, the law, etc. Also in Taiwan, this has become a bid issue for us to discuss about: should we legalize it? This time, I may put the emphasis on the aspect of moral and law.

        First, I want to talk about the motivation of why people want to use the surrogacy. The first reason, undoubtedly, is those people who lack the ability of giving birth to their children want to have their genetic children. This may be an agreeable reason for people to use surrogacy. However, if the parents just don't want to experience the suffering process of breeding, can surrogacy be a real beneficial way to us? According to the article, if they are in the case of the latter, the parents may lack "symbiotic intimacy" with the children.

                The "symbiotic intimacy" is like the father kisses the belly of the

                mother while she is having a baby. This is an important process to

                erect the intimate relationship between the parents and the children.

                Otherwise, if parents are unwilling to devote to their children for other

                reasons, it is worth skeptical about if they are qualified and ready to

                be a father and a mother. (孫效智, 1997)

        Second, how do we defined the surrogate mother? If we defined surrogacy as a mean, just paying the money to use surrogacy, it just like we treat surrogate mother as a "thing", we can easily dispose of it whenever we finish utilizing it, we deprive their human right. We materialize the women who are surrogate mothers. However, if we treat them as a "person", if we take away the children and pay money, we deprive their intimacy to the children. Also, both of the children and surrogate mother may be commercialized. On the other hand, are they really willing to be surrogate mothers? What is their purpose to be surrogate mothers? We have known before that those who are the surrogate mothers usually have poor economical situation, thus we can conjecture that "the popular commercialism of surrogacy may lead to a phenomenon that rich women exploit the poor women". (孫效智, 1997) Otherwise, if they don't be in this poor status, they just want to earn money through this way, "they may block the children's self-identification and materialize the interpersonal relationship." (孫效智, 1997)

        Third, it seems that we are hard to chose the best way to legislate the surrogacy, it contains too many complex problems, for now, it is difficult for us to execute, and it also contains the problem of definition of mother and other aspects in our life. It looks like that even though we legalize the surrogacy in Taiwan, we still cannot make sure there is no problem anymore, but should we just abandon it? I think if we see it is too complex and difficult to do and we give up, it is not a solution. It is going bad if we don't legalize it. Even though there is still a long way for us to prepare all things orderly and completely to make it legalize, we should all face this difficult situation bravely and solve it.

Reference

-孫效智，〈代理孕母的倫理與法律問題〉，《應用倫理學研究通訊》，中壢：中央大學哲學研究所應用倫理研究中心，期4，1997.10  Retrieved from http://www.ncu.edu.tw/~phi/NRAE/newsletter/no4/01.html

Peer response (4)

(1) April

[Comment 1] Evelyn, I think the second part is not real problem, the other two is ok. And, The second part you did mention in the previous annotations, why did you give the space for the other thing?

[My response 1] Yes, I mentioned it in my former annotation, but I get more space in this to find more data to support it. It's related to law part

[Comment 2] What is wrong if poor Indian women want to be that kind of mother to get money?

[My response 2] But, this is some kind of that people force them to do that because their poor situation, they are not willing to do that. And, if they do want to be a surrogate mother, they may make the process of breeding commercialize and make the children be something like materialize, that is why I against it.

[Comment 3] Children is materialize or not, is just the way we think about it. If we love the children, even if he/she was born by the service, it is still ok.

[My response 3] But, if the original parents have ability to breed their own children, they still use surrogacy, the children means that they buy for it just like we buy commerdises.

[Comment 4] The other thing, you said you do not support it to be legalized because it’s too complex and unpredictable to be regulated, but, the more the situation is complex, the more we need to legalize it. If we see it is difficult because it is too complex and difficult to do and we give up, it is not a solution. It is going bad if you don't legalize it.

[My response 4] I see and you're right. I will think more of my position and make a revision.

(2) Jessica Iveth Villasenor

[Comment 1] Its hink is ok, but I see in the second paragraph you say "according to the article...." but you haven't mentioned in the article, there must be an citation there.

[My response 1] OK, I will make a revision. Thank you

[Comment 2]  The title is not concrete, because your conclusion is that it shouldn't be legalized, you can make a stronger title.

[My response 2] OK, I will think more about it, thanks.

[Comment 3] In the last part you mentioned Taiwan but you hadn't mentioned in the beginning , I'm not sure whether you should write it. Maybe you can write a sentence in the beginning, you can put it in this sentence "...it relates to many problems in nowadays Taiwanese life ..." just to remind us that your annotation is specifically about Taiwan, otherwise when may forgot it

[My response 3]  Because my issue paper is should surrogacy be legalize in Taiwan? so....OK, I will make a revision for it, thanks.

(3) Ariel

[Comment 1] This seems to be an ending of the issue?

[My response 1] Not really. In the conclusion, I will connect four of my annotation together and make a real conclusion. I will also mention other parts and situations in another annotations, so this is not conclusion, the real one is that I will put things in order and write reasonable.

 (4) Sharon Tsai

[Comment 1] I think that what you mentioned about the laws and the complicated problems, you can write it into the paragraph too, which would be more clear.

[My response 1] OK, I will. Thank you.

Annotation 4: Surrogacy: Complicated and Unsolved Problems in Law and Morality

        As I mentioned in my Annotation 1, I think the method of surrogate mother may be a morally wrong practice. It relates to too many problems concerning to our lives: the surrogate mothers' health, moral problems, the definition of the mother, the position of the surrogate mother, the law, etc. This time, I may put the emphasis on the aspect of moral and law.

        First, I want to talk about the motivation of why people want to use the surrogacy. The first reason, undoubtedly, is those people who lack the ability of giving birth to their children want to have their genetic children. This may be an agreeable reason for people to use surrogacy. However, if the parents just don't want to experience the suffering process of breeding, can surrogacy be a real beneficial way to us? According to the article, if they are in the case of the latter, the parents may lack "symbiotic intimacy" with the children. The "symbiotic intimacy" is like the father kisses the belly of the mother while she is having a baby. " This is an important process to erect the intimate relationship between the parents and the children. Otherwise, if parents are unwilling to devote to their children for other reasons, it is worth skeptical about if they are qualified and ready to be a father and a mother." (孫效智, 1997) Thus, this may arouse the other problem of the surrogacy.

        Second, how do we defined the surrogate mother? What is their purpose of being surrogate mothers? If we defined surrogacy as a mean, just paying the money to use surrogacy, it just like we treat surrogate mother as a "thing", we can easily dispose of it whenever we finish utilizing it, we deprive their human right. We materialize the women who are surrogate mothers. However, if we treat them as a "person", if we take away the children and pay money, we deprive their intimacy to the children. Also, both of the children and surrogate mother may be commercialized. On the other hand, are they really willing to be surrogate mothers? We have known before that those who are the surrogate mothers usually have poor economical situation, thus we can conjecture that "the popular commercialism of surrogacy may lead to a phenomenon that rich women exploit the poor women". (孫效智, 1997) If they don't be in this poor status, they just want to earn money through this way, " they may block the children's self-identification and materialize the interpersonal relationship." (孫效智, 1997)

       Third, since we are hard to chose the best way to legislate the surrogacy, it contains too many complex problems, for now, it seems difficult for us to execute, and it also contains the problem of definition of mother and other aspects in our life. It looks like that even though we legalize the surrogacy in Taiwan, we still can not make sure there is no problem anymore because it is too complicated than we can image, thus I think we should not make the surrogacy legalize.

Reference

-孫效智，〈代理孕母的倫理與法律問題〉，《應用倫理學研究通訊》，中壢：中央大學哲學研究所應用倫理研究中心，期4，1997.10  Retrieved from http://www.ncu.edu.tw/~phi/NRAE/newsletter/no4/01.html

(revised) Annotation 3: Surrogacy: A New Hope for Gay Couples

As I mentioned in the beginning of my paper, surrogacy can also give a resolution to gay couples who want to have their own children. We can see from the video that the gay couple was happy for having their genetic child through surrogacy, they showed their delight to have the child. It seemed that the surrogacy give them a new hope to their life. They are full of joy, and the child is their happiness.

Besides, according to the article, we can know that there are many people that object to make gay couples adopt children because of their sexuality reasons in many nations. "Since it becomes very difficult for gay couples to adopt children, Surrogacy is the only option left for them to have a child." (Edwards, 2012) Otherwise, having their own genetic children through this way also has many advantages:

They can as a result get pleasure from the security of having a child which

　　　　is naturally theirs. They can also aid the surrogate mother at some stage in
　　　　the tenure of her pregnancy and make certain of her good health and that of
　　　　their unborn child thereof. Knowing the surrogate mother's past history will
　　　　guarantee you of the health of your unborn child. (Edwards, 2012)
Thus, we can realize that the surrogacy not only help the couples who are unable to have their own children through fertility problems but also assist gay couple to fulfill their dream of having genetic children. Surrogacy gives many people hopes and happiness, so why prohibit it?

Although some of the people still oppose to it because of the problems below: they may be treated as an object which is their only function is to give birth to other people’s children, and they are forced to be as a surrogate mother by their families because of the financial problems. Truly, these kind of problems exit, but if we change our mind to think this event with opposite way, we may have different outcomes. The surrogate mother although may truly be treated unfairly, if they can change their mind to think that being a surrogate mother not only help their own family (solve the financial difficulties) but also help others’ families (give them new hope to have their own genetic children), the problems are not anymore problems, we all beneficial from this technology.

However, I have to admit that this technology for the gay couples really have defects. That is, when the children grow up, they may ask where their real mothers are and they may also be discriminated by other people. Thus, how can we use this technology right and how can we provide safeguard to avoid the following problems, it’s really a big and worth-thinking issue to us.

Reference

-Edwards, Christopher. (March, 2012). For Gay Couples, Surrogacy Is Like a Light of Hope Retrieved from http://goarticles.com/article/For-gay-couples-surrogacy-is-like-a-light-of-hope/6199140/

-NewsX Online. (February, 2012). Commercial Surrogacy: A New Hope for Gay Couples Retrieved http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLkUCfywazQ&feature=related

Peer Response (3)

(1)Ken

 

 [Comment 1]

Recently, the Taiwanese official asked problems about surrogacy. He said that those women are just 哺育箱, they treat them as only object, what do you think about this?

 [My response 1]

Yeah, some part of people may think of this, but do you think that why those women want to be surrogate mothers? If they seem themselves as 哺育箱, they will not do this kind of things to give birth to other children, so I think it might be some disadvantages for being surrogate mothers, but if they choose it, they might accept this kind of job, so I think it might not be a problem to themselves.

(2)Tim

[Comment]

How about the children? Do you think they are victims to it? Because if I were a child born from the surrogacy, I want to find out my real mother.

[My response]

 Maybe for gay couples who use surrogacy has the problem of who is the child’s mother, but if the normal couple to use this, the genes, the sperms and ova are the original couples’, so they don’t have this kind of problem. But for gay couple I think…… hmm…… I will think more about it, thank you.

(3)曾品綺

[Comment 1]

I think that this issue is quite complicated and also it related to gay couples, they maybe bring more argument and maybe when their child grows up, they will suffer from discrimination or some other things, so I think you may talk about more this part.

[My response 1] OK, thanks.

[Comment 2] I think maybe you can think some more about laws about this issue, and let us know not only the personal examples, but also how the government treat this issue.

 

[My response 2]

OK, thank you. Maybe next annotation, I will take more parts on talking more about this.

(4)Vivian

 [Comment]

Also, the women who take surrogacy as a job, maybe they are forced sometimes. They are forced by their family because their financial problems.

 [My response]

OK, yeah, thank you.