This presentation approaches surrogacy from a comparative standpoint through the national examples of the Ukraine and the United States. The choice of these countries is meant not only to highlight stark contrasts in how surrogacy arrangements are carried out, but also reveals the fundamentally different legal/juridical rationales that these states use to either justify, prohibit, or ignore said practices. This approach allows me to situate each “model” within its precise cultural and political environment, thus contributing to a more comprehensive knowledge of the relationship between technology, law, and citizens’ bodies in each of these countries.            Through comparative observation, I have observed that women who choose to become surrogates and couples who turn to them compose and interact with the legal, political and cultural structures around them to achieve the surrogacy process. It is not because surrogacy is legal that it is accepted or considered acceptable. Likewise it is not because surrogacy is illegal that it is not practiced.            In other words, women who choose to become surrogates no matter the legal landscape necessarily first and foremost negotiate with what regulation requires, what cultural expectations are directed towards them, and lwhat they view as their role as surrogates, and more importantly with how they perceive of their bodies. From these exchanges, fieldwork shows that the greater value the society as a whole places on the act a surrogate undertakes, the greater sense of autonomy and agency the surrogate has.  

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