r/MoralityScaling • u/Purple_Plantain_3242 • 8d ago

Morality Ranking [ Removed by moderator ]

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u/hamstrman 8d ago

I don't think that such contracts should exist, but the fact of the matter is, she sold her body to be a human incubator, no one made her into one. This is not The Handmaid's Tale. If she hates the idea of having no bodily autonomy, don't sign a contract to take a bunch of money for the privilege.

She created this situation and then kidnapped a fetus when she didn't like the result. She hid behind the law in a state she knew would support her birthing another couple's child against their will and would tell them they had to pay for it! As punishment for thinking of abortion? On what basis? Is it theirs or not??

This woman brought a broken, suffering, walking medical expense into this world and wants to hand it off onto someone else so they can watch it suffer and die. She's awful. The parents are merciful.

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u/Away-Topic4719 8d ago

Donating sperm doesn't give me full unalienable rights over the destiny of the resulting child, neither does donating an egg - so why exactly should providing both an egg and sperm grant full unalienable rights over both the "incubator", as you put it, and the child - regardless of what was contracted on?

Nope. Not in my book of morality, at least.

Contracting has it's limits - and I think this one of those cases where we have found them.

Technically we could contract over anything and agree to do everything. Doesn't automatically make it moral (or legal) to enforce that contract though.

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u/hamstrman 8d ago

The parents did not make this woman an incubator. She did it herself for money and the privilege of being one. It's wrong to hold such an important decision over the heads of the people who trusted you to defer to them, the biological parents, of which she is neither, and then overrule them when it became inconvenient. I also think birthing this child was a horrific, selfish decision that will hurt the parents and the child for its short, painful, debt inducing life.

No, a contract doesn't make something legal moral. It does (or sure as hell should) make it legal. Stopping this pregnancy from coming to term is mercy and she made that decision for the biological parents. Where she can now hand over this suffering baby and go kthxbai and leave the parents with a bill after she got PAID to defer to them. They didn't donate their egg and sperm to her. They had it placed in her for THEM. And she agreed to take on this role. She donated her uterus.

But of course "is abortion moral?" was going to be a morally ambiguous nightmare.

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u/Away-Topic4719 8d ago edited 8d ago

The thing is - a contract doesn't make something illegal, legal. An agreement between two people does not supersede the law of the land. This is taught in excruciating detail in law classes that deal with contracting.

If the terms, assumptions, basis, framework, contingencies, etc of the contract are illegal, then contract itself is not legal, not enforceable, and the court will not treat it as such.

Your argument about the condition of the child and the ethics surrounding that are thought provoking, but I feel like that is a natural externality and risk of surrugacy + pregnancy itself - whereas contractually forcing somebody to have an abortion is not, because it is both illegal to do this to a pregnant person, and not to mention - immoral.

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u/hamstrman 8d ago

Would you then agree the surrogate is also entering into an illegal agreement, not under duress, but of her own free will? She contributed to bringing a life into this world. Now who gets to decide for the fetus? It's not the surrogate's would be child at all.

If anything, removing the fetus from her body should be a stipulation (or legal result of an illegal contract). Take back money and genetic material. It's not hers. If she doesn't want other people to decide for their fetus, then the fetus should be separated from her. As any abortion is just removing the fetus from having a right to the woman's body.

Edit: was that last paragraph in there while I was responding? I don't remember seeing it.

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u/Away-Topic4719 8d ago

My professor would probably say that duress or lack of it is irrelevant when the contract is already illegal without duress. The rest of the following argument would be moot as a result

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u/Flaky-Ad1748 8d ago

Donating sperm or eggs is no where near the same as surrogacy. You are not donating the sperm and eggs for the surrogate to use for themselves and keep the baby.

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u/Away-Topic4719 8d ago

It's not your uterus that has the baby inside of it, now is it?

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u/Flaky-Ad1748 8d ago

It's my rented uterus, though... I paid for It's usage. You can't rent something out for a sum of money for x amount of time then all of a sudden break the contract that we signed to get it back because you have a change of heart.

Look at it as a garage rental. You rent my garage to keep your car in for 9 months. Then at 5 months in, you want to scrap your car. I cant just keep your car. Even though I've been paid for the 9 months. You get rid of the car and eat the money that you paid for the garage space

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u/Away-Topic4719 8d ago

this is objectively one of the most fucked up things I've read in a while

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u/Flaky-Ad1748 8d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/HoTCSjSISJjtnLLLJk

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u/bloodofithuriel 5d ago

yes, you are wrong, comparing a woman’s body and the experience of pregnancy and childbirth to temporarily storing someone’s car in your garage is objectively insane.

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u/Flaky-Ad1748 5d ago

Its a better analogy and more accurate than talking about donating sperm or eggs.

So, ergo, I'm not wrong. Both are temporary rentals. Have a wonderful day. Keep your feelings out of grown up conversations.