JJ over at Jellybelly linked to an interesting newspaper article about surrogacy in this blog post. I'll cut to the chase on the article for you: single mom agrees to act as surrogate for Japanese couple, using man's sperm and a third woman's egg in an IVF procedure; the parties agree to implant two embryos; surrogate discovers she's pregnant with twins.
The reaction? The surrogacy agency tells her not to tell the couple that she is having twins. And why, you ask? So that she will be free to selectively abort one fetus if she decides she doesn't want to deal with a twin pregnancy. This made my skin crawl.
But wait, it gets better. I am casually discussing this situation with a Fertile Friend, secure in the knowledge that she would understand how truly horrible this would be for the hopeful parents in Japan, who may not get a chance for a second child and, even worse, wouldn't even know about it. But, Dear Reader, I am sure you see where this is going. FF was uncomfortably silent. She hemmed, she hawed. She finally said, "Well, I suppose it depends on how you feel about abortion rights."
WHAT? The surrogate's absolutely unfettered ability to abort a child she has no genetic part in but agreed to carry is an abortion rights issue?
Infertiles get no love.
6 comments:
Ugh. And Luca, no, I wouldn't agree that it's an abortion rights issue. She agreed to have two embryos transferred, and having been through IVF myself there's NO WAY she didn't know that twins were a possibility. She wasn't helpless; nobody can pin a surrogate down and force her to accept more embryos than she agrees to. Furthermore, the Japanese couple are paying her to act in their stead; not to be too crude, but she's essentially standing in for the wife, and doing what the wife would do if she were able to. I'd say in that case the decision should rest with the parents, not with the surrogate. Now, obviously, if the second baby was ectopic, or was somehow threatening the surrogate's life, that would have to be taken care of immediately; just as it would have been if it were the wife who was pregnant.
Think of it as being like leaving your children with a babysitter; obviously if the house catches fire or the child suddenly gets deathly sick and there's no number for a doctor, the babysitter is free to do what she judges best without spending precious time trying to track you down over the phone and see what you advise. But things like bedtimes, meals and so forth should be worked out ahead of time and not significantly altered unless something incredibly major happens.
Sorry - above comment was Sonetka. (Grrr - I keep forgetting that Blogger makes me anonymous)
I see the point people make for the surrogate, it is her body after all. At the same time by agreeing to have two embryo's transferred she accepted the rick of twins. It's not like they all divvied up and she's carrying octuplets.
The part that makes me sick is that the facilitator advised her to not tell the parents. I don't know what the right answer is, because the surrogates health is just as important as the parent's rights but I think at the very least it should have been a decision they made together.
The saving grace to this article, is that the surrogate seems to "get" that.
I second that.
Wavery
Bindweed Heigths
I honestly think that the surrogacy agency could easily avoid situations of this nature. I have had friends in the computer tell me general details about their surrogacy contracts, and I think that this is an issue that is usually addressed up front in such agreements. Of course, I guess the surrogate could "work around" that by determining if it were a multiple pregnancy thru a different dr & then "going her own way" WRT reduction, but then that's not the issue of it "being the surrogate's body" but rather an issue of the surrogate not fulfilling her end of the contract.
I'd have to agree with L.'s comment--it should have been clearly spelled out in the contract. Sounds like the surrogate has made it a non-issue anyway, having contacted the parents herself and (very generously) offering to carry both, regardless of the potential complications.
--Bugs
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