I am Locke'd in with my answer

Stop complicating the situation! Surrogate motherhood, the exchange of money for use of the womb, is like any other business exchange. Two people have certain desires/wants. They come to a conclusion. One person gets a child that she was not able to produce on her own, and the other receives money, for the sacrifice and labor. How is this different from any other agreement? The only difference is the fact that one is dealing with use of the body, as opposed to money, good, business, etc. Locke, however, emphasizes that the body is property, just as money, land, produce, and the like. Locke cites the example that one can barter plums for acorns, and one would do no harm to society. In order to barter things, both the owner of the plums and of the acorns must come to a common agreement. When the trade is carried out, nothing was done to harm society. Surrogate motherhood is simply a means of bartering. Since the woman’s body is essentially a piece of property, she can “sell” it if she so desires. I do not agree with Audra’s view that surrogate motherhood takes advantage of the poor…in what way? Would she dare to say that selling acorns or apples or plums takes advantage of the poor as well? In the capitalist society, one has the freedom to buy, sell, and trade without any impositions by the government. The government is not needed at large---the nature of the capitalist system is to keep prices reasonable, and everyone ends up satisfied, as in a fair trade. If one member of the trading party is poor (i.e., the surrogate mother), and the other wealthy (the purchaser), both end up getting what they want. Locke would agree to this view of trade with apples and acorns, and since he sees the human body as property, he would agree in the situation of surrogate motherhood as well. The only loophole in this surrogate mother scenario is the birth itself. Before the baby is formed, the process is treated like any other business transaction. The product of this transaction---the child, belongs to no one, according to Locke. He would state that the child is its own “person,” and “nobody has any right to it but itself.” Locke does not address parenthood, although I would venture to say that he would agree that parents are not the owners of their children. The transaction in surrogate motherhood is the use of the womb for money…not the child for the money.