An opportunity/a hope

[Rachel Adams]

Should I use "a" before "opportunity" and "hope"?

"Surrogate motherhood gives a barren woman an opportunity and hope to become a mother one day."

 

[Tdol]

Your sentence is OK. Changing it to a hope would not work. The hope would.

 

[5jj]

I'd say ... the hope of becoming ...

 

[Tdol]

Good point- I was concentrating on the article.

 

[emsr2d2]

Note that we don't tend to use "barren" anymore in this context. We use "an infertile woman" or "a woman who is unable to conceive".

 

[Yankee]

Should I use "a" before "opportunity" and "hope"?

"Surrogate motherhood gives a barren woman an opportunity and hope to become a mother one day."

"the opportunity" if the opportunity is evident/obvious
"an opportunity" among the possibility of other opportunities
no article, 'opportunity' as a general chance

Same for "hope".

 

[jutfrank]

I basically agree with Yankee here.

Whether you use an article or not depends on what you mean, which I think is not very clear. I think that what you probably mean should be expressed by using the before both opportunity and hope.

Another issue is the form of the verb hope, because we use two different patterns:

(a/the) opportunity to do something
(a/the) hope of doing something

So there are two things that I think you're saying:

Surrogate motherhood can give a woman the opportunity to become a mother.
Surrogate motherhood can give a woman the hope of becoming a mother one day.

However, neither sentence makes sense, because surrogate motherhood is motherhood. If a woman is a surrogate mother, then by definition she is a mother. You must mean something else.

 

[emsr2d2]

It depends on which woman in the contract you're talking about. The woman having the baby is, of course, biologically a mother. The woman who can't have her own child and is going to raise the baby is getting the opportunity to be a mother, by paying someone else to have the baby for her.

 

[jutfrank]

It depends on which woman in the contract you're talking about. The woman having the baby is, of course, biologically a mother. The woman who can't have her own child and is going to raise the baby is getting the opportunity to be a mother, by paying someone else to have the baby for her.

Oh, I see, yes. Rachel Adams is of course talking about the woman who will raise the child, not the surrogate mother. That's quite obvious, so I don't know how I missed that! Thanks.

I think I got confused by the phrase surrogate motherhood. If the phrase were changed to 'surrogacy' (in the sense that surrogacy is the arrangement between the two woman rather than the carrying of the child in the womb), then that would be clearer, in my opinion.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Note that we don't tend to use "barren" anymore in this context. We use "an infertile woman" or "a woman who is unable to conceive".

Or:

- a woman who can't have children

- a woman who can't become pregnant