The study provides an analysis of discourse specificities and strategies of mobilizations on GS in countries that are different each others for the following aspects: women's social condition, social inequality, surrogacy legislative frameworks, foreign or domestic IP, acceptance of surrogacy in society, and priorities that the topic has within WMs.
Secondly, the study provides a theoretical contribution to surrogacy scholarship. In light of the observation that surrogacy is debated through an adult-centric perspective, as a social practice that affects the individual life, social relations and inequalities of women, IP, infertile people, and homosexual people, I suggest a perspectival shift to a child-centric discourse: it is important to affirm that GS is first of all a procreative practice aimed at the generation of new human beings (in the form of children), although this aspect is often backgrounded in public debate and feminist discourse. In policy making the child's rights are subordinated to the freedom of the adult to resort to surrogacy: for example the child's rights to know his/her origins is resolved by recommending that the child can access the name of the surrogate.
Thirdly, this study warns that formation of consensus and dissent around GS is heavily influenced by passionate advocacy of principles: commodification of women's bodies and women's autonomy are appealing formula insofar they evoke crucial causes of the feminist movement, such as access to abortion, abolition of prostitution, dignity of sex workers, and emancipation from the family. However, they discourage reflection on GS social, ethical, and anthropological implications, by working as orientation devices for activists, policy makers, and the general public who have not yet accumulated sufficient expertise on the topic; as a result, GS is establishing itself in the public imaginary as another iconic representation of female emancipation. Also, arguments based on these two formulas have some problems of consistency, which might hinder the concrete reception of social movements' demands in policy making: this study contributes to question the principle of women's autonomy by looking at how in fact surrogates' autonomy during pregnancy is shrunk; on the other hand the defence of women from commodification should be understood in light of a spread social acceptance of the principle of self-determination and self-entrepreneurship.Finally this study identifies a few common concerns on which abolitionists and reformists might want to collaborate on the short-term, while keeping divergent long-term goals: protecting surrogates, egg-providers and children from unethical legal and medical procedures; respecting freedom and dignity of surrogates; promoting follow-up studies on the well being of surrogates and children, quantitative monitoring of the phenomena, and more scientific-based information for the public.
