Issues Of Commercial Surrogacy

Surrogate motherhood is one of the greatest achievements of mankind, and it is foolish to deny it. When a person is born, the first thing he sees is his mother. And, even without realizing that she is the most important person in his life, she is drawn to her. But here come the 20th and 21st centuries. Disasters, threats of nuclear war, AIDS, and one of the most terrible problems is infertility. If the first three of the above problems can be dealt with, then the last is not. Today infertility affects 1 out of 8 couples. Currently, there are many methods of artificial insemination, which help people suffering from infertility, to have a baby. Adoption seems to be a good way out, but in practice there are few children for adoption, therefore more and more people seek medical treatment that will help them produce a child. The first case of a test-tube baby was born in England in 1978 and the girl who was born, Louise Brown, is now an adult healthy girl. Since then, thousands of children have been born this way. But then there is an alternative way to try a woman all the joy of being a mother – surrogate motherhood. In its essence, the term ‘surrogate motherhood’ often means that a woman is carrying a child as if to order. The most common misconception of supporters is that they believe that in a child born by an alien woman their genes are combined, and since the genes are “own,” what difference does it make on what soil the fetus grows. Yes, a born child looks like a biological mom and dad. But for nine months he was in the bosom of another woman. And it was she who fed him with her juices, it was to her body that the future baby got used, it was she who was preparing to call her mother. After all, you cannot tell the child that he was able to incarnate – for money!

Supporters of surrogate motherhood do not consider it a form of exploitation of women; they claim that a woman who voluntarily chose to become a surrogate mother receives sufficient material compensation for fulfilling this role, as well as moral satisfaction from the benefits to society. As one of the surrogate mothers in northern California notes, “I cannot feed the hungry, I cannot stop the war, but I can change the world a little by helping the spouses to become a full-fledged family.” Another recent incident occurred in the UK: the family entered into a contract with a surrogate mother, who in the sixth month of pregnancy realized that she would never be able to give up the child. The court decided to leave the baby to her, her father was obliged to pay alimony … A happy ending? No, this is a real drama for all participants in the transaction: the mother herself, the couple, and there are also grandparents, by the way. And most importantly, it is difficult to say what kind of tragedy this situation could turn into for a child later. It is no coincidence that in many European countries (Germany, France, Italy, Poland) surrogate motherhood is prohibited, as is the legalization of children born to a surrogate mother in another country (most often they are sent to India).

The way a child is born with the help of a surrogate mother causes a lot of controversy and faces many complications. There are a lot of lawsuits and scandals associated with the use of this method. For example, often surrogate mothers refuse to give up a born child to its present parents. There were also reverse situations – a child born to an inferior refused to take his genetic parents, citing his refusal by the fact that his inferiority was due to the harmful influence of the surrogate mother’s organism. These complications have led to the fact that in some US states surrogate motherhood has been banned. However, many couples were able to have their child precisely because of this method. It should be noted that problems and complications in the overwhelming majority of cases arise when professional women are used as surrogate mothers, i.e. women practicing surrogacy as an occupation. As they say, according to the Hamburg score, there is nothing vicious and immoral in surrogate motherhood. Essentially, this is a medical procedure, that is all, when an embryo grown from the cells of biological parents is placed on a woman, a surrogate mother, who carries the fetus. According to the doctors, the procedure is even carried out without anesthesia and does not have a detrimental effect on human organisms. But even the very phrase “surrogate motherhood” is negative for many. Most often, the surrogate mother is ready to blame society for the sale of the child, and those who ask for its services, in the view of many, are immoral types who are picky. There are people, including those among the authorities, who compare surrogate motherhood with prostitution and advocate its prohibition. What explains the intolerant attitude to the phenomenon of surrogate motherhood? – A person is often inclined to deny what he does not understand. From the point of view of nature, surrogate motherhood is an unnatural process. Therefore, it does not find understanding among the masses. But surrogacy is a great achievement of modern medicine.

For the same reason — the contradiction of human nature — the Church also rejects surrogate motherhood. Categorically. Without amendments to the fact that people resorting to this service, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they do it by force, since they cannot bear the child on their own.

As for the question of whether to be or not to be a surrogate motherhood, the position of the ombudsman for children’s rights is clear and definite:

– The surrogate motherhood program helped to become parents and saved from despair many people who, due to medical indications, could not have children. So I’m for life!

Bibliography

1. K.N., Svitnev. Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Legal Collisions. // Legal issues in health care. 2011.
2. William G. Masterc, Virginia E. Johnson, Robert K. Kolodny. 1988. Basics of Sexology (HUMAN SEXUALITY). 1988.