Interaction between Surrogate Mother and Intended Mother: Sociological Aspects in Surrogacy

The surrogacy phenomenon has existed since ancient biblical times in which the barren Sarrai offers her maid Hagar to her husband Abraham to have a child with her. This relationship formed between Hagar and Sarrai, created conflicts that exist to this day. This article was written as part of the doctoral thesis, and aims to present the nature of the relationship that exists between the Israeli intended mothers and the Israeli surrogates, the intended mothers who have chosen to apply for surrogacy outside the country’s borders, and examine the relationship between the surrogates who were all Israelis to the Israeli intend mothers. The subject was explored in sociological aspects, according to Symbolic interaction Theory, which is a sociological theory that was presented to the American sociology by George Herbert Mead at the 1920s. The method that was approach is the qualitative method. The present study comprised of 70 women residing in Israel. The women’s ages ranged between 22 and 64 (M = 36.59, SD = 8.53). The women were sampled from two different groups. The first group comprised of 34 intended mothers who underwent a surrogacy process (41.4%). The second group comprised of 36 surrogate mothers who have undergone a pregnancy for other couples (51.4%). Analysis of the content done on the data collected from the interviews revealed two main themes - Emotions and Values involved in the interaction between the intended mother’s and the surrogate. This study opens the door to a variety of emotions and values that involve and guide the interaction between the two groups of mothers and allows a rare glimpse into the depths of the souls of women who are unable to have a child and women who are willing to fulfill another woman’s dream and, thus, sometimes, their altruistic aspirations.