Ett yrke, en gåva eller ett brott? : En kvantitativ studie om socionomstudenters attityd till surrogatmödraskap

Sammanfattning: Introduction: The aim of this study is to investigate social work students’ attitude towards surrogacy. Based on the concepts of altruism and the theory of mere exposure effect the analysis aims to contribute to a discussion of knowledge, ethical dilemmas and attitudes linked to possible future legislation of surrogacy in Sweden. The lack of guidelines and legislation for surrogacy makes it difficult for social workers to handle these matters, and research shows that social workers’ attitudes towards surrogacy have an impact on how the cases are handled. It appears that the attitude towards surrogacy is changing, especially among young people who seem to have a more positive attitude. Methods: 117 social work students at Lund University completed an online survey. Collected data sets were analyzed with frequencies and crosstabs. Results: Most social work students had heard about surrogacy through the media and 62 percent had a positive attitude towards surrogacy. Their biggest concern was that the surrogate mother would suffer from mental illness or feel exploited. 83 percent of the students thought it was possible to perform an act of altruism, but mainly when it comes to a related person. Conclusion: According to the mere exposure effect we tend to like things when they are familiar to us, but the results of the study rather indicated that exposure to surrogacy gave the students a less positive attitude towards it. This could be due to the fact that the image that media provides of surrogacy is primarily negative. It seems those who believed in altruism also had a more positive attitude towards surrogacy. This could be an indication that the students take a stand for altruistic surrogacy if it can be guaranteed that the surrogate mother will not get hurt.