All year, I’ve been interested in the concept of ‘surrogate mothers’, the Romanian newspapers keeping my curiosity alive with sensational news on the subject. I’ve started sketching this project while attending the workshop at Cisnadioara, Romania. There I was part of Paul Dunca’s performance, as the nurse that assisted the metaphoric birth of the black baby doll. I have to say, this was a very interesting and fun first experience.


Surrogate Mum is a project that analyses objectively the moral and legal concept, problems concerning the rights of surrogate mothers and those of a person living in Romania in 2010.

The concept of surrogate mother – In vitro fertilization consists of harvesting eggs from the mother and sperm from the father. After the insemination, an embryo is formed, which is then transferred into the uterus of the surrogate – a woman other than the provider of the eggs. If her organism accepts the embryo, the surrogate carries the pregnancy. After birth, the baby is given to the parents that provided the genetic material.

In Romania, there are no specific laws concerning surrogate mothers. The very concept of surrogate mothers makes way for moral debates: the mother that has given birth to the child would consider the baby to be her own, while the biological mother might live under the impression that, in a way, it’s not her child. From a legal point of view, the birth mother has all legal rights over the infant (the mother’s name in the birth certificate, according to the Family Code, must be that of the woman who has actually given birth – and this aspect cannot be argued with, by law). Legally, only reproductively challenged women have the right to use a surrogate mother.

Thus, all these stipulations of the article are an invitation to abuse. The minimum or maximum age not being stipulated means that couples from Western countries who didn’t have access to this procedure can now resort to it in Romania. The surrogate loses all decision making rights over her own body – she may not terminate the pregnancy without medical reference and, because of the social and economical situation, women may try to make a living by taking ‘jobs’ as surrogates. Also, it encourages discrimination, because single women and/or gay couples do not benefit from in vitro insemination. If they are not married, the couple has to prove they have been in a relationship for at least two years, although there are no legal grounds on how this could be proven. Furthermore, a single woman has the right to adopt a child, but she’s not eligible for artificial insemination. And the list goes on…

Stage props: Paul Dunca

Surrogate mum, c-print,  variable dimensions, 2010