A big step forward, certainly. The focus, and some of the reading that resulted from the Googling, was very useful. I don't think the question ever needs to be asked in the form whether John Locke is for or against gestational surrogacy. He would have perceived a direct connection to the common law of bastardy that is less immediately evident to us.

The strength that you gain from being in contact with more complex positions is partly diffused by the framing, which is still in the form of "yes" or "no," Peggy Radin v. I-don't-know-who. This is a necessary perspective, but not the only useful one. What your exposure to these and some other positions (I missed John Stuart Mill, for example) now prepares you to ask what we are really discussing. Skipping the big words, is our question how to do this right, or whether doing this is wrong? Are we asking how to achieve the greater good while avoiding so far as is consistent with doing so the development of "exploitative scenarios"? Or are we asking whether this is exploitation?

Unlike the discussion about whether this or that should be permitted or prohibited, the dialogue between consequentialist and deontological positions neither can nor should be concluded. What the essay would benefit from, then, isn't coming to an incomplete conclusion, but rather reflecting more fully the nature of our irresolution.