Is Commercial Surrogacy Exploitative? A philosophical analysis of the concept of exploitation within commercial surrogacy arrangements, using the industry in India as a case study. (360G-Wellcome-101953_Z_13_Z)

I will expound a unique theory of exploitation. In doing so, I develop an analytic framework that is composed of a sufficient condition for what it is to be exploited, and demonstrate that commercial surrogacy arrangements in India satisfy this condition. This sufficient condition, is preliminarily that, B is exploited by A when B's vulnerability is used by A to take unfair advantage of B. I will need to theorise vulnerability as a state that precedes being exploited; surrogates vulnerability is used to then take unfair advantage, and this is what constitutes the exploitation. I need to define and conceptualise the notion of gaining unfair advantage and how it applies in this context, relating to the surrogate's capacity to bear children. I then need to demonstrate that surrogacy in India satisfies this condition, and so can be seen as exploitative. I will do so by analysing empirical and ethnographic data relating to the surrogate's circumstances, which shows the ways in which they ar e vulnerable, and provide an argument for how this contributes to their exploitation. I also need to consider the moral force of this exploitation, and why it is of ethical interest, despite its purportedly mutually advantageous nature.