Surrogacy is when a woman carries and gives birth to a baby for the infertile couple. There are three types of surrogacy. Genetic surrogacy or partial surrogacy: Here the egg of the surrogate mother is fertilized by the commissioning male’s sperm. In this way the surrogate mother is the biological mother of the child she carries. Total surrogacy: Here the surrogate mother’s egg is fertilized with the sperm of a donor – not the male part of the commissioning couple. Gestatory surrogacy or full surrogacy: Here the commissioning couple’s egg and sperm have gone through in vitro fertilization and the surrogate mother is not genetically linked to the child.
How surrogacy is arranged? There are two types of surrogacy arrangement. Altruistic surrogacy: here, the surrogate mother is not paid for her ‘service’. She ‘offers her womb’ as an act of ‘altruism’. Often there will be a pre-established bond between the surrogate mother and the expecting couple.
Commercial surrogacy: compensation is given for carrying the child. Often there will be a mediator, a surrogacy agency that deals with all the practical arrangements: finding a suitable surrogate mother and dealing with all the paperwork. On the other hand there are other ways of surrogacy arrangement besides these two that were new insights that I gained during the lecture class. For example, nowadays, in order to simplify the process of a search for a surrogate mother for the patients, certain clinics have legal firms attached to them. However, we would recommend that you first compare the range and the cost of the services provided by them with what the agencies that specialize in full support for the surrogacy programmes can offer you.
The real question exists when we get to know whether surrogacy is ethical or not. A typical objection to surrogacy (particularly that of commercial surrogacy) is comparing the physical aspects of surrogacy to a form of prostitution: In both cases one can view the women as selling physical, intimate, bodily services. Selling their bodies and their function for money! Furthermore everybody knows that the world is ‘overpopulated’ and that there are many orphans whose parents have died from decease or because of war. There are also many children who are living in children’s homes because their parents couldn’t afford to keep them. The argument her is that people have moral duty to care for the existing children in need rather than proceeding to make new babies which I consider to be totally unethical
Komentarze