Surrogate motherhood happens when a couple hires a surrogate mother to carry their child. Informal surrogate arrangements are known to occur since the old times when women volunteered to carry a baby for their infertile sisters. However, the legal foundation for such kinds of arrangements was given only the 1980s.
T here are some aspects that make surrogacy better than traditional adoption:
• The waiting time is much shorter. The process of adoption can often take the incompetent couples many years. When the surrogate conceives the waiting period is only nine months.
• Sometimes the prospective parents discover that they are infertile too late and cannot be accepted by an adoption agency because of they are too old.
• The intended parents have the genetic relation to the child.
The issue of surrogate motherhood brings up several ethical questions:
• How can legislation prevent “renting a womb” agreements, where a woman extorts large sums of money from an infertile family to carry a child?
This problem may appear as a lot of women knowing that being a surrogate mother gives a good compensation will volunteer to carry other people’s children for money. And the intended parents who gave their embryo to the intended mother will doubt in clearness of her conscience.
• How should a surrogate be remunerated for legitimate expenditures, for example when she looses job or profit because of pregnancy?
Although loosing profit is the surrogate’s private problem, generally the intended parents are expected to compensate her all her losses. Another opinion is that the money the surrogate carrier receives after giving birth to a baby include indemnification all her damages.
• Who has parental rights if the surrogate changes her mind to give the baby away?
The controversy appears when the carrier wants to keep the baby, especially if she is the child’s biological mother. If the intended parents and the surrogate mother signed the contract the couple has legal parental right to the child. If the agreement between them was of private character the intended parents may not have the possibility to prove that the surrogate carries their baby and the whole situation will be on her conscience.
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