The Legal Status Of Surrogate Motherhood

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.

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.

Law reform is considered proactive with relation to surrogacy and birth technologies, as methods of conception must be permitted before they are conducted. Surrogacy, which occurs when one woman agrees to fall pregnant and bear a child for a couple, is illegal in NSW when the woman is paid a fee or award, under the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2007 (NSW). Hence, surrogacy must be altruistic. Furthermore, the Surrogacy Act 2010 (NSW) now criminalises an international journey for commercial surrogacy.

This is best described in the article “Rules get tough for overseas surrogacy”. People using surrogate mothers in India may no longer be able to do so after the Immigration Department said it would not guarantee citizenship to babies. India is one of the most popular destinations for couples seeking surrogacy arrangements is changing its laws to require prospective parents to obtain a guarantee of citizenship for their child before starting the surrogacy process.

There is nothing in federal legislation in regards to surrogacy. Laws regarding surrogacy vary from state to state. As of this moment, several states prohibit acts of assisted reproductive technologies. In those states any surrogacy contracts are unenforceable, proclaiming all contracts void (Hansen, 2011). Some of these states consider acts of surrogacy a crime, punishable by law. While some states allow surrogacy by only to married couples or to couples where one of the intended parents is related to the child. A majority of the states allow surrogacy to take place. In fact they have allowed the surrogacy field to prosper (Hansen, 2011). These states do not have any regulations on surrogacy. Surrogacy contracts are binding just as any other drawn up contract. When entering into such a potentially controversial contract, lawyers should be present to discuss any issues, and to witness the agreement.

Surrogate motherhood is considered the most controversial form of medically assisted conception. Surrogacy is defined as an arrangement by which a woman gives birth to a baby on behalf of a woman who is incapable of conceiving babies herself or is infertile. The issue of surrogacy has been running for almost three decades. Elizabeth Cane was the first woman in the United States to legally become a surrogate mother in 1980 (Chittom and Wagner). Surrogate births are illegal in many countries, including some states in the United States. For example, it is illegal in Michigan, Washington, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and New York, whereas it legal in California, Oregon, Texas, and Arkansas (Chittom and Wagner). According to the Organization of Parents Through Surrogacy (OPTS), about 22,000 babies have been born from surrogate mothers in the United States since surrogacy became legal in the 1970s (Chittom and Wagner).

Currently there are several federal statutes governing the disposition of gestational surrogacy. There is Florida Statutes 742.14 Part One, which states prior to engaging in gestational surrogacy, binding and enforceable gestational surrogacy contract for gestational surrogacy shall not be binding and enforceable unless the gestational surrogate is 18 years of age or older. Except as provided the gestational surrogate agrees to relinquish any parental right upon the child’s birth, regardless of any impairment of the child. In addition, the gestational surrogate also agrees to assume parental rights and responsibilities for the child born to her if it is determined that neither member of the commissioning couple is the genetic parent of the child.

The legal framework internationally has made it complex for intended parents to receive the title of parentage if the child is born overseas via commercial surrogacy arrangements. This has resulted in many Australians becoming “stranded” overseas after having a child through a surrogate mother, as they are unable to apply for citizenship for the child under the Australian Citizenship Act, due to the obscurities of the definition of parent/s. Consequently the current surrogacy laws have not stopped the exploitation of under paid women willing to be surrogates; they have simply moved them to poorer countries such as Nepal, Thailand and India. Thus Surrogacy in Australia presents many legal and social issues within our country.

Surrogate motherhood agreements have motivated widespread public, governmental and academic debate. Surrogacy refers to a practice when another woman carries and gives birth to a baby for the couple who want to have a child. Full surrogacy (also known as Host or Gestational) involves the implantation of an embryo created using either:

The contracting couple agrees to pay the surrogate mother's expenses during the pregnancy and delivery plus a fee for the surrogates's services. The fee can vary between $10,000 and $100,000 per pregnancy. The surrogate mother also agrees to terminate her parental rights to the infant and turn it over to the contracting couple after birth. A vast majority of the surrogacy arrangements proceed without difficulty, occasionally problems arise concerning custody of the child. Since the concept of commercial surrogacy is relatively new, there are few laws and legal precedents concerning these contracts.

The state and/or federal laws in regarding to this case, "the Stern's initially won the case Ms. Whitehead on who should have custody of Baby M, but the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1987 awarded Ms. Whitehead parental rights, although the Stern continued to have primary custody" (Hyman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, V, 2016). This case demonstrated the two types of surrogacy agreements: altruistic surrogacy and commercial surrogacy. An altruistic surrogacy, the surrogate mother is essential carrying the child as an act of kindness and only reimbursed for the expenses the surrogate mother incurred as a termination of the pregnancy and she does not accept any payment and does not charge the parents a birthing fee for her service and the surrogate

In today’s society, surrogacy is becoming a more and more popular and common issue. For many couples who cannot or unwilling to carry babies by themselves, surrogacy is the first choice to have their own babies and build a family. The legality of surrogacy is different for every country. There are countries that consider the birth mother as the legal mother while there are those that don't. Besides, a lower price of surrogacy in developing countries drives them to find surrogate mother overseas. Thus, international

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

in April 1986. A girl was conceived in vitro using sperm and eggs of her biological parents (Bruce-Hickman, 2009). Adopted from url.www.essaywriting.expert/surrogacy-essay/ The world practise of surrogacy There are many moral, ethical and religious disputes arising over the issue because of which the national legislation of the developed countries restricts surrogacy. In some countries it’s prohibited completely, in others it’s partially restricted. Surrogacy is prohibited by law in Austria, Germany (doctors and facilitators are penalized, rather than parents and surrogate mother), Norway, Sweden, and in some U.S. states (Arizona, Michigan, New Jersey) and France. For instance, the French believe that surrogacy “contradicts the law of adoption and violates the term of inalienability of the human body” and that’s why surrogacy is completely prohibited in France (Drabiak, 2007) in Germany a doctor that has translated the fertilized egg must incur the criminal penalties and pontential parents and surrogate mother get only a warning from