Your views on commerical surrogacy

[ray245]

Since this is a rarely talked about topic, I would like to ask the people down here, what is your views towards surrogacy and do you think should commercial surrogacy be legalised?

In my opinion, I fail to see any reason why there is a need to ban commercial surrogacy given the fact that a woman has the ability to decide what do her own body.

[KrauserKrauser]

Is this a Singapore thing?

I was under the impression that there are companies that will match surrogates with couples that want one in the US.

Might be that damn Hollywood fooling me again. DAMN YOU BABY MAMAAAA!!!!!

[Darth Wong]

Is this a Singapore thing?

Maybe. They love to ban things there.

[ray245]

Is this a Singapore thing?

I was under the impression that there are companies that will match surrogates with couples that want one in the US.

I know that in certain states, commercial surrogacy is legal, but I recall that surrogacy is illegal in quite a few European nations. You can't earn money by being a surrogate mother in the Netherlands if I recall.

[Broomstick]

I was under the impression that there are companies that will match surrogates with couples that want one in the US.

Yes there are. However, in the US we once again have the quagmire of each state making their own laws in regards to the practice. I don't care to look up fifty different statutes and in some cases the accompanying court cases as well.

Laws range from banning the practice to allowing pretty much any contract between parties. It's quite common to ban paying a woman to be a surrogate - expenses associated with the pregnancy (considerable at times in the US with our fucked up health "system") such as medical care and transportation to doctor visits, even maternity clothes, can be paid for, however. Some states restrict the practice solely to married couples, others allow unmarried couples to use a surrogate. Many states treat it as a form of adoption.

My own feelings are somewhat mixed on the issue. I like to say a woman owns her body and if she wants to rent out her womb that's her business. However, there is the problem of exploitation, questions of just how informed all parties may be in regards to risks, and historical experiences show that these can blow up into hugely ugly custody issues that drag on for years. Maybe I'll think about refining my position some more, it is an interesting question.

[ray245]

My own feelings are somewhat mixed on the issue. I like to say a woman owns her body and if she wants to rent out her womb that's her business. However, there is the problem of exploitation, questions of just how informed all parties may be in regards to risks, and historical experiences show that these can blow up into hugely ugly custody issues that drag on for years. Maybe I'll think about refining my position some more, it is an interesting question.

Isn't that more of an enforcement issue as oppose to an issue regarding the legalisation of such act?

[Broomstick]

Have you ever noticed that it's poor people who sell their kidneys in India, not the middle class and wealthy?

Likewise, surrogates are almost always poor, and the ones hiring them usually have MANY more resources. Such business relationships are not inherently exploitative, but the potential there is greater than for other situations. Remember that pregnancy, however natural, imposes significant strains on a woman's body and always carries some risk. What are the ethnics/morality in paying a woman to carry another woman's child? Given poverty, you may well have women doing this who otherwise wouldn't get pregnant How much money is renting a part of your body out for nine months and risking various health problems, some of which may have permanent effects, along with a small risk of death, actually worth? And will anyone actually pay that?

Last I looked into it, most US states don't allow profit from surrogate arrangements. Medical costs can be covered, for example, but you can't pay a woman a fee over and above her expenses. Having a woman move in with you and providing her with room and board would be allowed, but we're back to women trading their bodies which gets uncomfortably close to prostitution for many people. I believe the whole "no profit" thing sprang up because of the cultural discomfort with selling body parts - it's fine to give away your left kidney, but not to sell it - but it would allow people to help out a couple they knew who could not carry children to term.

Even if strictly profit driven arrangements were permitted, however, you get into other issues. Pregnancy is a biological function, subject to errors and problems that are no one's fault - but sometimes are. What happens if the surrogate does something the biological parents consider hazardous? Does that void the contract? Who defines hazardous? What if the child is found to have a birth defect? Will the bio parents be obligated to accept the child anyway, or will they pressure the surrogate to abort and try again? You can't force a woman to get an abortion in this country, any legal arrangement mandating it would be automatically void. There is also the problem that a woman will always feel something toward a child she is carrying regardless of whether it's genetically hers or not. A woman can't be dispassionate about what's growing inside her, and this is a matter of biology. All sorts of hormones come into play. While women certainly can and have surrendered children at birth this does not, apparently, come easy and since surrogacy first started happening there has been a steady rate of surrogates wanting to keep the babies after their born. You're working against some very basic biology here.

So, you have the following problems:

1) How to avoid exploiting the poor? If most surrogates are coming from the poor, how to ensure they are receiving fair compensation for the stresses and risks imposed on their body, which may have lifelong consequences? Keep in mind, the people hiring them are likely to have more education and resources, including the capacity to hire better legal advocates for themselves.

2) How do you deal with less than satisfactory outcomes? Birth defects happen. We already have a problem of women being blamed (by themselves or others) for less than perfect babies when the kids are their own, what will happen when a less than perfect child is born via surrogacy? Well, it has already happened, and the resulting court cases were ugly. The have been instances were no one wants to take the baby.

3) How do you get around biology-driven emotions surrounding pregnancy and birth? Mother-child bonding occurs in all mammal species. It's tied to the survival of the species. Although, obviously, it can be overcome there is no way to eliminate the desire of a mother to keep the child she gives birth to and no legal document will change the fact that those feelings normally occur. Again, this has already come up, with instances of the surrogate fleeing with the child she gave birth to in order to keep it. This is less likely to happen when a relative carries a child (for example, mother carrying her grand child, or sister carrying her sibling's child), but the potential for it to happen is there, too.

Commercial surrogacy sounds wonderful in many ways, but it simply may not be workable in the real world. Well, at least not in areas where slavery is forbidden, because if you allowed slaves then, hey, no problem - rent out this female slave's womb and who cares if she cries when you take the babies away? She's just a slave, right? But there are all sorts of problems where women have equal rights and full citizenship.

[Solauren]

I'm divided on the issue

On One Hand - What happens sexually between legally consenting adults, no matter the number, is between them.

On the Other Hand - The surrogate has agreed to provide the contracting couples baby with a safe, warm, and health biological developmental environment. Who gets to decide that? The contracting parents, or the womb-for-hire? To what extent? What if the contracting parents want the mother do take something she's against doing? (i.e a Veggie surrogate and contracting parents demanding she eats red-meat, etc). Does not following the wishes of the surrogate violate the contract? if it's Violated, who gets the kid? Can a surrogate abort in this case and not be violating the contract? If the surrogate aborts over a contract disbute, is she committing murder?

Anywhere it's legalized, those sorts of questions need to be considered and addressed.

[Thanas]

Commercial surrogacy is outlawed in Germany.

However, adoption agencies are still allowed to work.

As for who gets the kid - the mother aka the women who actually carried the child. Doesn't matter who the father is. It gets a bit trickier if it is a fertilized egg, but the law still gives the final right to the kid to the women who carried the child.