Journal of Christian Religious Studies

Pregnancy by proxy is an emerging reproductive technology that presents another solution to infertility. This study investigates the ethical problems and cultural contradictions associated with pregnancy by proxy in Africa. Utilizing the theoretical frameworks of commodification, critical feminist analysis, and African philosophical conceptions of personhood, family, and lineage, this study investigates how surrogacy affects traditional understandings of parenthood and kinship. The findings show that pregnancy by proxy poses complex questions in relation to definitions of parentage, motherhood, and family identity; that many African communities have a significant sense of communal responsibility, kinship and ancestral continuation, as part of what determines parental status and social legitimacy. Therefore, pregnancy by proxy challenges long-standing cultural assumptions regarding conception and inheritance. The study concludes that pregnancy by proxy undermines the notion of motherhood and social identity. Ultimately the study recommends an ethically informed model that integrates advances in reproductive technologies with the cultural values of Africans.

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