In their article “Cutting Motherhood in Two: Some Suspicions Concerning Surrogacy”, Hilde Lindemann Nelson and James Lindemann Nelson argue against the idea of commercial surrogacy. Their main argument revolves around the rights that biological parents owe to the children they bring into the world. This argument can be formulated as follows: 1) Bringing a child into the world makes a child vulnerable to harm, 2) Both of a child’s biological parents have duties and obligations to defend the child from harm, 3) Only biological parents can fulfill the duties to defend the child from harm and it is immoral for a parent not to do so, 4) Surrogate motherhood contracts require the biological mother to give up her parental rights, 5) Giving up parental rights prevents the biological mother from fulfilling her duties to the child, Therefore, 6) Surrogate motherhood contracts are immoral because the duties to the child are not met. This argument is, as any good argument must be, logically valid. It is impossible to disagree with the conclusion if the premises are true. However, this argument is unsound because not all of the premises are true. Biological parents are not the only people who can fulfill the duties owed to a child and protect them from harm. Surrogate motherhood contracts do not prevent the duties owed to the child from being met.
As a fact of life, there are harms in the world that one is exposed to just by being alive. Once a child is brought into the world, they are
I do detect a strong parallel between paying for non-replenishable organs and poor individuals harming their bodies for the benefit of the rich. First of all, I do not believe it is acceptable to accept a payment or fee or the duty of carrying a child as a surrogate for the gestational mother. In most cases when a fee is accepted for this service, the child is by definition labeled as a product of a business transaction. Due to the fact that a fee is paid to the surrogate mother for bearing the child as well as lawfully accepting provisions such as refrainment from smoking, drinking alcoholic beverages, revoking her right to abort unless assessed by a physician as necessary for the surrogate’s health, or even taking certain medications, thus crafts the act into one requiring payment for the purchase of a baby. “Such provisions indicate that the fee is a payment for a healthy child and not for the rental of a uterus” (Baillie, Garrett, Garrett, McGeehan, Health Care Ethics: Principles and Problems, 2009, p.232). The resulting fact is that payment is rendered for a satisfactory product: a healthy baby who is raised by the surrogate in its fetal state under many stipulations and conditions. This gives way to “the fact that the presence of payment may tempt financially distressed women to agree to surrogate contracts against their best interests” (Baillie, Garrett, Garrett, McGeehan, Health Care Ethics: Principles and Problems, 2009, p.234). This directly correlates with another
Australian law reforms have been adequately effective in dealing with surrogacy and birthing technologies. The NSW state reforms have effectively supported the changing values of society by aiming to achieve justice and avoid conflicts surrounding surrogacy, while the commonwealth is obsolete on effective laws to prevent surrogacy issues. As the demand for surrogacy and birthing technologies increases, issues surrounding surrogacy are more prevalent in society. Additionally, there is no Commonwealth law, meaning each state and territory has developed individual laws of surrogacy and birthing technologies, allowing for issues and challenges surrounding the protection and the rights of all parties involved.
Cases of this kind emphasise the tension between two significant policy goals: the child’s best interests, which must dominate the court’s determination as to whether to grant parenting orders, and the prohibition of commercial surrogacy. The former, naturally, prevails. In every published case, the Family Court relied on the evidence tendered by the intended parents indicating the foreign birth mother’s consent to the applications, even where some of that evidence was quite concerning; the birth mother’s lack of interest in parenting the child;and the satisfactory nature of the parenting arrangements achieved under the agreement, in concluding that the best interests of the child were served by making the parenting orders.The earliest published international surrogacy case is Re Mark (an application relating to parental responsibilities). The facts are fairly typical. A couple from Victoria entered into a surrogacy contract under which a woman in California agreed to bear a child for them; the ovum was supplied by an anonymous woman, and one of the applicants provided the
The procedures of surrogacy is a delicate and sensitive topic which raises many concerns in the public. As a result of this, Australian laws and courts of law must allow and regulate these practices to make it safe for all involved. Commercial forms of surrogacy agreements are illegal in most states, shown in Part 2, Division 2 in the Surrogacy Act 2010 NSW and Chapter 4 Part 1 in the Surrogacy Act Qld. However, in remaining jurisdictions, couples are allowed to deal in commercial agreements and therefore often turn to an overseas arrangement. It is here where Australian law becomes more obscure and less regulated. In any arrangement including altruistic surrogacy, there are no enforceable laws on the agreement, hence prompting multiple issues regarding the parentage of the child. When the child is born from the gestational carrier- the birth mother and father, according to the Status of the Children Act 1996, are the legal parents. It is when the intended parents apply for a parenting order and accepted by the birth mother that the child’s parentage is transferred- this situation is set out in the case of Re Michael
I read an article that was published on The Hasting Center Journal, called “The Case Against Surrogate Parenting”, by Herbert Krimmel, Krimmel takes a stand against surrogate motherhood arrangements because of the many ethical issues it causes, he argues surrogate motherhood, is a financial profit, there can be conflicts during the process, and is designed to separate in the mind of the surrogate mother. First, Krimmel argues that the reason a woman often or always undertakes the pregnancy is because of the money motive. He states, “The cause of this dissociation is some other benefit she will receive, most often money.' In other words, her desire to create a child is born of some motive other than the desire to be a parent. This separation
Commercial surrogacy is the process in which a woman is paid a fee to carry and deliver a baby to term. Once the baby is delivered, the woman relinquishes all parental rights to the commissioning couple who exclusively raise the child as their own. Altruistic surrogacy, by contrast, is an arrangement where the surrogate receives reimbursement but only for the expenses that she may have incurred during the pregnancy. In this essay I will argue that commercial surrogacy should not be market-inalienable. I will start by outlining Elizabeth Anderson’s argument in “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?” in which she offers a number of criticisms to commercial surrogacy. I will then outline objections to the argument and highlight how her argument is highly speculative and does not provide an adequate basis for the prohibition of commercial surrogacy.
Baby Business by Insight on SBS had a discussion about surrogacy in relation to a couple that had a baby though surrogacy. In the show it was said that most surrogate mothers have genetically babies, which the mother gives her egg and the father gives his sperm and the doctor inseminates it in the surrogate mother. Most of the everyday people have to the term “renting a womb” towards surrogacy whereas the Women Health Resources
Purdy defends surrogate mothering from a consequentialist point of view. Her case is founded on two premises: firstly, that surrogacy is favourable (that is, it brings about pleasure and reduces pain), and secondly, that the practice is only non-traditional and not morally reprehensible. She thus concludes that "appealing to the sacrosanctity of traditional marriage or of blood ties to prohibit otherwise acceptable practices that would satisfy people 's desires hardly makes sense", and thus, surrogacy should be permissible (Purdy, 1999).
When one or more persons contract with a woman to gestate a child than relinquish that child after birth to the person or couple is known as surrogacy. It is a course of action that goes outside of natural reproduction. For some, it is the only method of having children, extending family. Surrogacy has been stirring up many controversies over the years. Ethics, morals, laws, religious views, etc. have played a major role in the issues that follow the topic of surrogacy. Laws and regulations pertaining to surrogacy vary from state to state. Some states have no enforceable laws
There are many people with permanent disability’s that contribute to our society in very useful ways. In most cases, these people are viewed as being courageous. This kind of a reaction is typical but not always honest. There are a lot of people are uncomfortable around those that are considered “less than normal”. In her article The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have, Patricia Bauer writes about Down’s syndrome and abortion. Bauer is a former reporter and bureau chief for the Washington Post.
Amie Cullimore, a medical practitioner, filed a child support claim against Michael Ranson, who more than two decades ago donated his sperm to Amie Cullimore, who subsequently conceived two children. Cullimore alleges that throughout the years, Ranson has assumed the role of loco parentis, which means that Ranson has stood in the place of the parent throughout the years. Ranson filed a response that Bill 28, also known as, All Families Are Equal Act, which extinguishes Cullimore`s claim based on the assertion that the surrogate parents who lack an intention to be parents cannot be considered parents in law.
As early as 1550 B.C., Egyptians were performing abortions. Egyptians documented the techniques they used to perform abortions and by the Middle Ages, the concept of abortion had spread globally (PRB). Knowing the idea, of terminating a pregnancy, was being performed in 1550 B.C., the number of babies lost to this horrific death will never truly be known. Since 1969, the CDC started documenting the numbers of legal abortions obtained in the United States. Roe vs. Wade was the infamous court case that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1973, that assisted abortion in becoming completely legal. The United National Library of Medicine published that since that day in 1973 abortion rates peaked but remained continuous through the
Utilitarianism is a universal teleological system. It calls for the greatest good for the greatest number, meaning that whatever is beneficial to the greatest number of people is good, whereas whatever benefits the least number of people is otherwise. From the utilitarian stance, surrogacy may be morally right because the intended parents receive a much-desired child. In the case of commercial surrogacy, the surrogate mother receives a reward in form of payment, and in altruistic surrogacy, the surrogate (who acts voluntarily) gives the “gift of new life” (Saxena, Mishra & Malik, 2012). If a surrogacy is to unfold smoothly, then from a utilitarian stance, it is good; as the greater numbers of people are happy. Even in the application of the
There are two standard justifications for the market which include the welfare/utilitarian and the libertarian justifications. Looking specifically at the libertarian view of the free market, one would see that markets are established and upheld in order to protect individual’s rights or liberties. This implies that people are free to act however they please within those rights regardless of the outcomes that may occur from their market decisions. Going along with this, libertarians argue that the very nature of freedom is getting what the individual wants. This can be seen clearly in the libertarian statement that individuals have unlimited rights to their own bodies and lives. In the “baby M” case mentioned earlier, libertarians would argue that the buying and selling of reproductive capacities or the selling of babies, in general, is allowed on the market. A libertarian owns their body and can dispose of them in anyway that they choose which expands to surrogate pregnancies. Libertarians agree with this due to the fact that people have “the right to do whatever we want with the things we own” which include their bodies. However, this is a conditional statement saying that the only way someone can do what they want with their life or body is “provided we respect other people’s rights to do the same” (Sandel, pg. 59-60). The “baby M” case, respects self-ownership if everyone owns themselves. Therefore, surrogates are allowed as long as the individual owns their body and other libertarians continue to respect other individual’s
Laws are legislated and enforced for the mere purpose of protecting all individuals in a society by stating what is and what is not acceptable behavior. Though it is impossible for these legislative decisions to please every single individual in a society, these governs are passed in morality of the thousands of elected parties in charge. Commercial surrogacy is a current complex issue that evokes strong moralistic response. Commercial surrogacy takes away the childbearing element in the reproductive period for individuals looking to have or extend a family. It has opened the doors for many who cannot bear children of their own though this behavior has also raised many concerns about the appropriate scope of the market. This “method for acquiring children” is more commonly objected because the children and women’s reproductive ability are being treated as a commodity. Summed up through Elizabeth S. Anderson’s article, “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?” children are buyer durables and women are baby factories (Anderson 82). Anderson communicates commercial surrogacy children as commodities stating how this “market” that these children are born into expresses attitude that endorses market norms as opposed to ‘norms of parental love”(Anderson 76). Anderson focuses her paper towards the manipulation, alienation, and exploitation of women that commodifies women’s reproductive capacities. Through Anderson’s argument and her perceptive relations of this market to alienation,