The Surrogate Mother - Womb For Rent

1489 Words3 Pages

The Surrogate Mother - Womb For Rent

In 2000 the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) defined reproductive rights as "the basic rights of couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children; to have the information and means to do so; and to have the right to make decisions concerning reproduction, free of discrimination, coercion or violence."[1] Traditionally society defines reproductive rights in the context of one's being able to make decisions about his or her own reproduction; other individuals, unrelated to that person, were not considered as being involved in the decision. With the onset of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1978, reproductive processes have become more complicated. For example, in gestational surrogacy a surrogate mother, not genetically related to the embryo, is brought into the process of reproduction. This technique allows infertile couples to carry a child or children in the womb of a carrier, rather than in the womb of the biological mother.[2] As a result of this ethically controversial technology, society must modify its reproductive rights. In vitro fertilization (IVF) alone will not solve people's reproductive problems and protect everybody's rights. Society, therefore, must distinguish whose rights-the rights of biological parents or those of the surrogate mothers-should be protected.

Gestational surrogacy, especially when it involves commercial surrogates, challenges the status quo in the ethical theory of reproduction, because with this technology the process of producing a child can no longer remain a private matter. Now a public contract exists between two parties, the couple and the surrogate ...

... middle of paper ...

...potlights surrogate motherhood." June 20, 2000. sponsored by Spotlight Health. back

[7] Stock, G., and Campbell, J.. "Engineering the Human Germline: an Exploration of the Science and Ethics of Altering the Genes We Pass to Our Children, New York; Oxford University Press, 2000. back

[9] Shanley, M.L, Surrogate Mothering and Women's Freedom: A Critique of Contracts for Human Reproduction, (Politics and the Human Body) editors-Elshtain, J.B, and Cloyd J.T1995, Vanderbitt University Press, Tennessee back

[10] "Interactive Population Center UNFPA" November 15, 2001 back

[11] Raymonds, Janice G.. "Reproduction, population, technology and rights." Women in Action Journal. 2:1998 back

[12] Granat, Diane. "She's having our baby." Washingtonian. 32 (1997): 54-7 back

[13] http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~alatus/2803/nrt1ivf&surrogacy.html</a> back

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