It has been recently estimated, that more than six million couples only in the United States of America suffer from some degree of infertility, and such a big amount of people, stimulated the rise to individuals and comanies, whose aim is to take advantage of the situation, infertile couple happen to be in. Of course, surrogacy is an option for copuples, which deal with infertility for years, as adoption means bringing up someone else’s child, while depending on the type of surrogacy procedure, it is possible to have a baby, related geneetically to at least one, though maybe to both of intended parents.
Unfortunately, people, who have been struggling with their infertility, and who failed to have a baby of their own, as well as those women, who did get pregnant, but experienced miscarrieges, consider surrogacy as their only chance to have a baby of their own,and on their lookout for surrogacy agencies and medical facilities, they can possibly run into one, which operates in a dishonest and unethical way. For example, there existed a group of doctors, who were busy with the surrogacy procedures, and they were eventually found to be stealing eggs and embryos from their pations and switching eggs and embryos among their patients.
In one major case in the mid 1990s a group of doctors in California were found to be stealing eggs and embryos from their patients as well as switching eggs and embryos among patients without them being aware of it. Thus, those couples of intended parents had children, who were in biological connection with other people, and their biological children were born to another couples. Moreover, none of these couples was given any kind of truthful information about the sperm and egg that they were bringing to term.
This is why it is extremely important for all the participants of all surrogacy agreement to learn as much as possible about what to request and what questions should be asked in order to reduce the risk of any kind of surrogacy related disaster. In case if the couple of perspective intended parents have their eggs aspirated for use in an In Vitro Fertilizaition procdess, they are to make sure that they request a consent form, which looks like a contract, signed between the couple of the perspective intended parents and their doctor. In this contracrt will be pointed out everything what the intended parents want to be done with the eggs, not used during the In Vitro Fertilization procedure. It is a kind of routine for more eggs to be harvested that will be necessary for an initial procedure.
However, here rises the question: what can be done with the eggs, unused. It depends. There are women, who want the unused eggs to be destroyed, others prefer to donate them for research or even for the use by another infertile couple (in this case, these intended mothers become egg donors). There are also cases, when women choose their eggs to be fertilized and frozen afterwards in order to use them somewhat later.
In case if you are the perspective intended mother, who needs the help of an egg or embryo donor, you should not forget to make sure to request proof of the donation. It is an important procedrue, because it is necessary to know that the egg or the embryo was knowingly donated. Check for all the information to be be clearly pointed out that the egg or embryo donor or donors (in case if a woman, who becomes an egg donor for your future baby is married) have relinquished the parental rights.
In case if you are on the receiving end of donated eggs or embryos, be sure to request proof of the donation. You need to know that the egg or embryo was knowingly donated. Make sure that the documentation clearly states that the donating party or parties has relinquished all parental rights.
However, taking parental rights into consideration, there is a whole range or issues, which had been never considered during the past years. There has been a major legal case recently, into which a couple, which received an embryo, which was implanted into a surrogate mohter. But yet before this baby arrived, the couple that took part in the surrogacy agreement, divorced. When the husband was filling for divorce, he noted, that he did not have any children in his marriage; however, when the surrogate mother gave birth to the child, his former wife began to claim for the child support. The husband has quite a legal argument, that this baby was not in any biological relationship to either him or to his former wife. Anyway, several years of numerous court battles were needed for the judge to decide that the husband was the legal parent of the child, born in the result of a surrogacy agreement, and that he was obliged to provide support for this child.
Therefore, all the legal and moral issues, involved in any surrogacy agreement, mean that no person is to enter into any kind of surrogacy relationship without having considered all the emotional, medical and legal counceling in the most careful way.
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