Surrogacy, Autonomy and Promising

In the debate over surrogacy, reference is frequently made to the unpredictability of the surrogate mother's emotional response - she is unable to know beforehand how closely attached she will be to the child she has carried in her womb for nine months, and how she will feel about handing over the child to the commissioning couple. Although the degree and nature of this unpredictability of emotional response has been questioned in this paper, Lynn Gillam takes it largely as fact. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how the unpredictability factor might have moral significance.