Surrogacy The Compassionate Act Of Carrying A Baby

A womb for rent by Ellen Goodman is a good read. The author wrote about the practices of surrogates in third world countries and the united states. She explains that even though the U.S. supports surrogates, other countries like India supports it as well but not just because some women can't have kids, but so that they can have income and other things.

When two married adults find themselves in a situation where they would like children, but due to other circumstances, they are unable to naturally conceive a child themselves. It is in this case when a couple may choose surrogacy, defined by Merriam-Webster dictionaries as “the practice by which a woman (called a surrogate mother) becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby in order to give it to someone who cannot have children.” Naturally, when making a decision regarding surrogacy, the two adults may choose to look to their religion as a guideline for if surrogacy is morally right. However, due to various viewpoints on the issue, different religions have different perspectives on the topic. As a result of the conflicting viewpoints that the Old Testament has about the moral legitimacy of surrogacy, Judaism tends to believe that surrogacy is moral, whereas Catholicism tends to believe that the opposite is true.

There are four types of surrogacy. First is the traditional, or formally known as genetic surrogacy. Genetic surrogacy is when the carrier donates both her eggs and her womb. With this route, there are many legal issues that the parents could face. Under the law, the carrier is the mother of the child. It is also unethical and illegal, according to the 13th amendment, to hand over the custody of a child for money. Also, against the 13th amendment, there is a forced separation of mother and child in this situation. One of the biggest risk that parents take with this type of surrogate mother, is that the mother is allowed to decide to keep the baby and they can do nothing about it. The surrogate mother, by law, is allowed to keep this baby because it is her egg which means that it is biologically her child.

Commercial surrogacy is the process in which a woman is paid a fee to carry and deliver a baby to term. Once the baby is delivered, the woman relinquishes all parental rights to the commissioning couple who exclusively raise the child as their own. Altruistic surrogacy, by contrast, is an arrangement where the surrogate receives reimbursement but only for the expenses that she may have incurred during the pregnancy. In this essay I will argue that commercial surrogacy should not be market-inalienable. I will start by outlining Elizabeth Anderson’s argument in “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?” in which she offers a number of criticisms to commercial surrogacy. I will then outline objections to the argument and highlight how her argument is highly speculative and does not provide an adequate basis for the prohibition of commercial surrogacy.

Surrogate mothers have been the topic of many controversies, regarding how ethical it is. As many know surrogate mothers are women who bear a child for another woman (Surrogacy: the experiences of surrogate mothers, 2196-2204). There has been many sides to this argument, deciding whether it was ethical or unethical. Some people have chosen to support this type of medical practice, while others have shun it away completely arguing against it’s inhumane ways.

Depending on who is in power politically at a given time, certain people in society are vulnerable to abuse. This author will focus on the topic of forced sterilization in America, as there are certain people in this country that are still coerced and forced into sterilization.

This policy does not only limit the number of children a family can bear; it has also caused gender imbalance. In addition, it places pressure on women as families believe in passing down their family name down generations. They were also subjected to forced abortion if it appears to be a baby girl, and are blamed if they were to give birth to a baby girl. This difference in treatment took a turn for the worst after 1986, when ultrasound tests and abortion became easier to come by. Not only has the policy stole the freedom of women’s rights to make decisions, it had also led to the increase of female infanticide

In their article “Cutting Motherhood in Two: Some Suspicions Concerning Surrogacy”, Hilde Lindemann Nelson and James Lindemann Nelson argue against the idea of commercial surrogacy. Their main argument revolves around the rights that biological parents owe to the children they bring into the world. This argument can be formulated as follows: 1) Bringing a child into the world makes a child vulnerable to harm, 2) Both of a child’s biological parents have duties and obligations to defend the child from harm, 3) Only biological parents can fulfill the duties to defend the child from harm and it is immoral for a parent not to do so, 4) Surrogate motherhood contracts require the biological mother to give up her parental rights, 5) Giving up parental rights prevents the biological mother from fulfilling her duties to the child, Therefore, 6) Surrogate motherhood contracts are immoral because the duties to the child are not met. This argument is, as any good argument must be, logically valid. It is impossible to disagree with the conclusion if the premises are true. However, this argument is unsound because not all of the premises are true. Biological parents are not the only people who can fulfill the duties owed to a child and protect them from harm. Surrogate motherhood contracts do not prevent the duties owed to the child from being met.

Pande tries to shed more light on the economic and psychological empowerment and opportunity surrogacy has given women. Surrogates are introduced to medical services that are normally not accessible to them. Over the course of her research, Pande shifted her position and stated that the practice of surrogacy needs to be prohibited, and came to view surrogacy as ethical work that needs regulation in order not to exploit the women and babies. She believes surrogate mothers must be given the right to organize in labor unions and negotiate with the intended parents.

Additionally, during infancy, the right to be breastfed is also a matter of concern. If going even deeper, right to be born is also an important construct of the social system of child welfare. Mothers are socially responsible for taking care of themselves during pregnancy so that child is protected from all kinds of harmful effects. This is the reason why many medical practitioners strongly oppose the use of alcohol and smoking by pregnant women (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). The social workers belonging to this system particularly focus on the tasks which are beyond the control of a child. An example is earning livelihood. In many societies, child labour is considered a crime and is discouraged. Even at international forum, special initiatives are taken to combat child labour in developing country who permit this practise

In Canada, 1 in 6 people will experience infertility where they have trouble conceiving (Fertilitymatters.ca, 2015). Unfortunately, Canada currently does not have reliable statistics on surrogate pregnancy (Lozanski, 2015). Presently, over 4.5 million children have been born through assisted reproductive technologies and this number is increasing each year (Golombok, Blake, Casey, Roman & Jadva, 2013). Even though surrogacy is legal in Canada, surrogates are prohibited from making profit through surrogacy (Surrogacy in Canada Online [SCO], 2015). The Assisted Human Reproduction Act was passed in 2004 where it outlines a surrogate may only be reimbursed for out of pocket expenses including maternity wear (SCO, 2015). Some of the things that

Laws are legislated and enforced for the mere purpose of protecting all individuals in a society by stating what is and what is not acceptable behavior. Though it is impossible for these legislative decisions to please every single individual in a society, these governs are passed in morality of the thousands of elected parties in charge. Commercial surrogacy is a current complex issue that evokes strong moralistic response. Commercial surrogacy takes away the childbearing element in the reproductive period for individuals looking to have or extend a family. It has opened the doors for many who cannot bear children of their own though this behavior has also raised many concerns about the appropriate scope of the market. This “method for acquiring children” is more commonly objected because the children and women’s reproductive ability are being treated as a commodity. Summed up through Elizabeth S. Anderson’s article, “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?” children are buyer durables and women are baby factories (Anderson 82). Anderson communicates commercial surrogacy children as commodities stating how this “market” that these children are born into expresses attitude that endorses market norms as opposed to ‘norms of parental love”(Anderson 76). Anderson focuses her paper towards the manipulation, alienation, and exploitation of women that commodifies women’s reproductive capacities. Through Anderson’s argument and her perceptive relations of this market to alienation,

Many individuals have a life plan consisting of college, marriage, and then children. After numerous methods of conception, many couples are still unable to conceive a child. A woman who enters into a contract with a couple, agreeing to carry and birth a child, then hand that child over to the contracted couple, who is often unable to conceive own their own naturally is considered surrogacy (Pozgar, 2012). Surrogacy raises many ethical and legal issues for all parties involved. Is it moral or immoral to enter into an agreement with a woman to birth a child for money? What are the

Surrogacy is arrangement in which a woman is hired to carry and give birth to a child who will then be given to another couple or person. The child is usually related to the birth mother, but in some cases, may be related to the surrogate mother. Maria Trimarchi (2008) from a health article on infertility, informs readers of the “two types of surrogacy: traditional and gestational”. With traditional surrogacy, the surrogate mother 's egg is utilized and then fertilized and this makes her the genetic mother of the child. In gestational surrogacy, the egg is provided by the intended mother or a donor (Trimarchi, 2008). The egg is fertilized through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and then placed inside the surrogate mother (Cheung, 2014).

Surrogate Motherhood is something that not many people actually support, even though it “is one of the many reproductive techniques that have enabled infertile couples to have children” (qtd. in Freedman). There are two types of surrogacy, traditional and gestational. The traditional type of surrogacy involves the surrogate mother being (AI) artificially inseminated with the sperm of the intended father or sperm from a donor when the sperm count is low. In either case the surrogate’s own egg will be used. Genetically the surrogate becomes the mother of the resulting child (Storey). Although there are two different types of surrogacy, a traditional surrogacy is rarely seen or done anymore. In gestational surrogacy, the surrogate mother has