Sociological Debates on Gestational Surrogacy

Daniela Bandelli, PhD, is Lecturer of Sociology at LUMSA University in Rome (Italy). She has a  Ph.D. from the University of Queensland, Australia. As a Marie-Sklodowska Curie Fellow and visiting scholar at the University of Texas, she is conducting the project “Women's Movements and Gestational Surrogacy” (WoMoGeS), with fieldwork in Mexico, United States and Italy and this book is an outcome of the research project. Her research interests span across assisted reproduction, domestic violence, and feminism. She is the author of Femicide, Gender, and Violence (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017).

• An introduction to the problems of surrogacy and the demands from civil society.- The study's origins and methodology.- Features of a booming reproductive practice. The medical process, the market, the antecedents and the risks.- Sociological perspectives across individual experiences, social structures and representations.- Surrogacy in the United States: the horse is out of the barn.- The Mexican case: the differences between autonomy and radical feminism.- The Italian case: a strong opposition in the name of women’s sexual identity and motherhood.- Abolitionist and Regulatory Arguments into perspectives.- Conclusions.