Pros and cons of surrogate motherhood

Surrogate motherhood is a complex and ambiguous topic. Despite the fact that it is not prohibited in Russia, this is somehow embarrassed to talk about it, because this reproductive technology raises more questions than it gives answers. On the pros and cons of surrogate motherhood, we will tell in this material.

Surrogate motherhood is an officially recognized assisted reproductive technology that allows couples with total female infertility or complete inability to endure a child to have a native genetically “their” child. Previously, couples in which a woman could not become a mother for medical reasons or because of congenital or acquired anomalies of the reproductive system (uterus, vagina, ovaries) had only two choices - take the child from the orphanage or live a life without children in general.

Surrogate motherhood, which is essentially known since the days of Plutarch, but received a "second wind" only in 1980, gives a chance to a barren couple to have a child who is native by blood and genes. In addition to married couples, single women with coarse uterus pathologies or other diagnoses that are absolutely incompatible with pregnancy and childbirth, as well as single men who have matured to conscious paternity become “customers” of surrogate mothers.

She is the one who bears and produces the baby (or babies), but they are not her relatives. After giving birth, a woman undertakes to give a born baby to its biological parents.

For IVF as part of a surrogate motherhood program, donor germ cells can be used - a single man can use oocytes from a cryobank, and a single woman can use donor sperm. However, the surrogate mother herself has neither the legislative nor the moral right to give her own eggs for fertilization, because in this case the child will be biologically native for her, and this may complicate the outcome - the surrogate will refuse to give her baby, attached to it.

Becoming a gestational courier is very difficult - the requirements for the health of women are very high. In addition to being healthy, she must have children of her own. Finding such a woman for carrying a child to infertile couples and lonely Russians and Russian women is also not easy: despite the abundance of reproductive agencies, clinics with their own surrogacy databases, special forums and online communities, a good, responsible and decent gestational courier today is a real find.

Gestational courier "works" for a fee. The size of the fee is not regulated by anyone and depends on the candidate’s agreement with the biological parents.

Undoubtedly, gestational couriers are necessary and useful: many couples and single men and women get a long-awaited and earned chance to become parents. The need to have and raise our own children lies in each of us at the genetic level, this is a normal requirement of the civilization process. And sometimes the surrogates - really the only way out of the situation.

The Russian Ministry of Health clearly indicates the indications for such assisted reproductive technology: the absence of the uterus, its developmental defects, post-traumatic changes, as well as a large list of diseases and conditions in which a woman cannot bear on her own due to the high risk of her own death. Single men testimony is not required.

Today, about 17-20% of families in Russia suffer from infertility. Of these, about half require reproductive care. According to statistics, about 5-7% of such families cannot cope without a gestational courier.

For surrogate mothers themselves, a contract for the provision of services to a barren couple is a way to improve their own difficult financial situation. Services on average in Russia cost from 1 to 3 million rubles, and this may be a new apartment, if a woman with a child has no place to live, or an urgent need to resolve the issue of costly treatment of someone from relatives. Situations are different. Married women, with the consent of the spouse, also become surmas, and, believe me, each of them has very weighty reasons for making this decision.

You may wonder why the society has a predominantly negative opinion about surrogate motherhood, because all the parties from it are only good. Probably, the argument of supporters and opponents of this assisted reproductive technology will never end, because both of them give very weighty arguments in favor of their opinion. If there was an opportunity to put them on the scales, with great probability the scales would remain in balance. therefore the decision to join the surmaturism program is equally difficult for both gestational couriers and their “customers”.

Both surrogates and future biological parents, even at the decision-making stage, face ethical problems. Most often, they are ashamed to confess to their relatives and friends that the couple needs the help of a foreign woman and a stranger. Many biological mothers pretend to be pregnant, wear special linings on the belly so that everyone around them, even their own people, could not even think what price this happiness got - to be a mother.

Bioethics does not allow the attending physician to disclose this secret ever and to anyone.. Only three people know about the big secret - a husband, a wife and a female gestational courier. However, the human factor can not be ignored, information leaks should be feared.

Those who want to become parents need to keep their ears open - there are quite a few scams on the Internet who take a prepayment and disappear. Also, often biological parents may face the facts of manipulation: a woman, having become pregnant, begins to blackmail her “customers” with what will make an abortion or start to smoke and drink alcohol, if she does not increase the fee or fulfill any other conditions. Sometimes it may happen that a woman refuses to give up the child after giving birth, as she will get used to it in nine long months.

Biological parents may be caught by a woman who has health problems and has provided fake medical certificates, in which case the baby’s health will also be at risk. An irresponsible surrogate may refuse or forget to take medications prescribed by a doctor on time, will miss visits to the consultation, will not adhere to a diet and proper nutrition during pregnancy. In general, the list of possible problems is very large.

The female gestational courier itself may also become a victim of dishonest “customers”. She may not pay after delivery, refuse to pay any unforeseen expenses associated with pregnancy, if they are not stipulated by the terms of the contract. Spouses, who are biological parents, can get divorced at the moment when they cherish a crumb for them, and then the child will become a victim of family clashes or will be abandoned altogether. Before the surrogate mother will be asked what to do with the baby and who will pay her now.

The attitude of "customers" to "performer" is not always correct and adequate. Not so rarely biorites who want to control every step of the gestational courier, install surveillance cameras everywhere, including the bath and toilet, do not allow them to freely leave the house to go somewhere for their personal business. These actions, of course, are justified by fears that the surrogate will violate the terms of the contract and harm the baby. Not every couple in this situation can stop in time and understand where the rational border lies, where their rights end and the freedom of another person begins.

Relationships of the gestational courier and biorodites should be regulated by a contract in which all details should be specified, all situations should be considered so that the interests of the two parties are taken into account and suit everyone. It is better to entrust such work to specialists - lawyers of agencies who mediate between surrogates and customers, or lawyers of clinics where couples are observed. But even a very precise and competent agreement does not guarantee that everything will go smoothly and that at any stage there will be no difficulties or misunderstandings.

Another ambiguous moment is whether to tell the child when he is older, how he was born. Bioethics prohibits both physicians and gestational courier. But information leakage can be, besides, some parents consider it their moral duty to tell the grown-up child this family secret.

To achieve the blessing or approval of clergy of almost all religions on surrogate motherhood, most likely, will not work. In most beliefs, this reproductive technology is strongly condemned and rejected as immoral. Spouses who want to have a child at any cost, violate the basic rule of any faith - with patience and humility to accept this given by the Almighty.

Orthodoxy believes that spouses who refuse to accept their infertility for granted already violate the law of God. However, the attitude of the Church to IVF in general is more loyal, but only under the condition that doctors will use the sex cells of the wife and husband to obtain germs. The donor material, surmotherinism - methods that, according to Orthodox priests, violate the great mystery of the Christian marriage, as well as completely detract from motherhood, turning it into a commercial transaction. In this case, the child becomes a subject of sale and purchase, and human life is priceless, this is what the main fundamental principle of the Russian Orthodox Church says.

With Orthodox priests, fans completely agree of Islam. Not a single mullah will give his blessing to spouses who inform about their desire to hire surrogate for the birth of offspring. Muslim women who themselves want to become gestational couriers are very rare, since the punishment for such a sin in Islam is substantial - the whole family, friends and relatives can turn away from the woman.

Catholicism completely prohibits all reproductive assistive technologies, be it IVF, ICSI, intrauterine insemination or surrogate motherhood.

Judaism we are more tolerant of gestational couriers, however, Israel will never conduct an IVF protocol if the surrogates are relatives (which is not prohibited in Russia at all). The country in which IVF is fully paid for by the state, where any reproductive methods are supported, severely restricts related “services”, because rabbis consider this to be incestuous, which is a serious offense.

The most tolerant attitude towards gestational couriers demonstrates only Buddhism, since his admirers believe that the most important thing is for everyone to be happy, and if surrogate motherhood is the only way to achieve this happiness, then why not.

In addition to issues of faith and religion, all participants in the process may face such a phenomenon as a personal crisis. If the female gestation courier decided to participate in the program for the first time, the risks are much higher that it will be very difficult for her to part with the baby she carried out under her heart and gave birth. With her mind she will understand and realize that the baby is completely alien to her, but with her heart she can truly love him.

The biological parents of the infant may also experience a mental crisis, since women in such couples are tormented by the feeling of guilt for not giving birth to the baby but to the other, while their husbands feel somewhat uncomfortable in this situation.

Opponents of surmotherinism put forward the following arguments: the program itself is contrary to the laws of nature, it rape the souls of all participants, and the consequences may be most unexpected. Unfortunately, divorces often occur. After the successful completion of the treatment course, discharge from the balloons and flowers from the maternity hospital, the biological parents part after some time, because the secret they carry is too heavy, and the emotional burden is too heavy.

Families of gestational couriers, if the woman has a husband, having received the necessary amount of money for giving birth to a baby, also in most cases fall apart. Most men, even if the spouse’s participation in the program was confirmed by their consent, cannot accept in the depths of their souls the fact that the wife generally agreed to this. Conflicts begin, more often reproaches follow, as a result - a divorce.

If you are faced with a difficult choice - whether to agree to participate in the program, think carefully about whether you are ready for possible risks, as well as changes that will not necessarily have a happy ending. In many respects, the clerics are probably right, who point out such important aspects of human life as voice of conscience. To keep the answer to each of the participants of the surrogate motherhood program will first of all be in front of himself.

The inadmissibility of the violation of the sacrament and intimacy of the union of two is difficult to challenge. Those who fiercely tried to do this, very soon realize how wrong they were. From this point of view, the couple is easier, as they are advised in most cases, to take the child from the orphanage, the baby left without parents or the abandoned child. Conscience will be light and calm. But the desire to have family children is also impossible to challenge.

See more on the psychology of surrogate motherhood in the next video.