Drive Belly

by Serué, Dora

With the collaboration of Juan Jorge Michel Fariña and Susan Miller

What are the core bioethical premises surrounding surrogacy? The Israeli series Guf Shlishí, literally “Third Body,” released in Latin America as “Functional Belly,” and in the Anglo-Saxon world as “A Body That Works,” is currently available on Netflix. These various titles, as we will see, do not reflect the true core of the plot. Our presentation is intended to present the conceptual misunderstandings and ethical conflicts introduced by this dramatic miniseries. [1]

The initial storyline is familiar to us. Ido and Elie are a young couple looking to have a child. Although Elie initially becomes pregnant, spontaneous, recurrent miscarriages occur, frustrating the couple’s attempts of a successful pregnancy. After three years of unsuccessful attempts, their obstetrician advises the couple to consider surrogacy as their next option.

But in this case, it is above all interesting to show how the situational conflicts occurs based on the recommendation of the intervening professional, who is precisely the one who uses the expression “functional belly” to refer to the potential surrogate. One is immediately reminded that although surrogacy is often considered to be a “therapeutic alternative” for infertile couples, paternalism, economic vulnerability, inequality, exploitation, legal contracts, and surrogate health add to the moral dilemmas associated with this intervention.

While the information about surrogacy the doctor communicates is clinically correct, the timing and bedside manner in which he does so are ethically objectionable. First of all, we can notice his difficulty while listening to the couple and his portrayed inability to empathize with their acute grieving situation. Elie has just lost a seven-week pregnancy, which, via ultrasound, revealed the child’s female gender. The doctor does not notice or acknowledge this pain and addresses her and her husband in an imperative, imperious tone.
He unilaterally assumes surrogacy is their next step and has his secretary start the search for a suitable candidate. The physician next allows their in-person consultation to be interrupted when he provides additional medical consultation to an anonymous person on the telephone.

From then on, the main focus of the plot, whose details we will not reveal here, lies in showing the tension between this non-therapeutic medical setting, the couple’s parenting desires, and the complexities which manifest between the competing desires of the protagonists. We are progressively shown the subjective entanglements between the future parents and the unmarried surrogate in their increasingly tragic journey. What begins in disparaging terms as a “functional belly” becomes what we will call a “drive belly.”

In this regard, we will mention, without developing them, two axes of analysis that are essential for today’s presentation:

1. The question of language: How does one name this peculiar situation, in which the mother is not biologically pregnant, and the surrogate does not perceive the pregnancy as her own? What place do expressions such as “being pregnant” on the part of the couple, or “the baby is not mine” on the part of the surrogate have here? The series screened by Netflix is extremely rich in this issue, showing the subjective consequences of this difficulty in naming an event. What is not articulated by words is exemplified by the successful portrayals of the actors.
2. The question of the body: Which body is represented by the title of the series? For example, is “Third Body” the surrogate’s biological body, medically minimized by its functionality (“a body that works”)? Or does the title reference the instinctual-drive body, in the sense of the desire that appears displayed by each of the characters?

The contrast between the physical experience of the body and the delimitation of the body at stake are key to thinking about the bioethical complexity of surrogacy. The need to articulate knowledge emanating from medicine, law, psychology, but also psychoanalysis, theology and the conjectural sciences is clearly seen in this fiction.

Guf Shlishí shows the importance of narrative bioethics when chronicling situational pathos. The scope of feelings, emotions and passions set in motion by these experiences are much more than merely reproductive.

In summary, the plot from this series invites us to remember the lessons of Greek tragedies when revealing the impact of three generations structure. Furthermore, these stories remind us once again of the extraordinary value of cinema for illuminating contemporary bioethical problems.

NOTE

FORUM

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