Mothers and Fathers

What drives the desire to be part of the commercial surrogacy arrangement in India? This chapter seeks to answer this question by looking at an important aspect of transnational commercial surrogacy: informed consent from the commissioning couple and the surrogate mother. A ‘declaration of intent’ by both participants is a mandatory document within the surrogacy contract. What does intention mean? It is not merely a willingness to participate and agree with the modalities of the commercial surrogacy contract, but also to ‘choose’ to be part of it. Within this ‘choice’ and the use of the nomenclature of the ‘intended parent’ and the ‘fertile’ surrogate are the processes of screening eligibility to be part of the arrangement. Thus, in the examination of the notion of ‘intention’, the ‘contract’, couple/individual and the surrogate mother ‘speak’ of their choice of surrogacy. In this way motherhood and fatherhood are explored in relation to ideas regarding kinship, genes, and nurturance.