Unraveling surrogacy In Ontario, Canada : an ethnographic inquiry of the influence of Canada's Assisted Human Reproduction Act (2004) on surrogacy contracts, parentage laws, and gay fatherhood

This thesis examines the influence of a variety of legal and social factors in surrogacy. I examine the scope and influence of the Canadian federal law known as the Assisted Human Reproduction Act (2004) on assisted human reproduction, which elides commonly held views on commodification and surrogacy. Next I turn to narratives of formal and informal contractual exchanges in surrogacy. I also look at the influence of legal kinship practices on surrogacy alongside multiple conceptions of parentage. Finally, I discuss two cases of gay surrogacy that conform and contest gendered assumptions of parenthood. "Unraveling Surrogacy" is a small-scale and qualitative ethnographic study spotlighting the narratives of six core participants, and based on a range of data sources that include governmental witness testimony, federal reports on assisted human reproduction and legal cases of parentage