Recently I watched the documentary Breeders, which I recommend to everyone – gay and straight, liberal and conservative. The documentary, produced by Jennifer Lahl at the Center for Bioethics and Culture, exposes the ethical dangers posed by the practice known as “surrogacy.”
Surrogacy is the use of a contract, by which a woman agrees to carry a gestating child in her womb for another party (usually an infertile heterosexual couple or a gay male couple), and also agrees to abandon the child to the couple who has engaged her services.
Compensated surrogacy means that the carrier is paid to rent out her womb.
Uncompensated surrogacy means the carrier turns over the child without receiving anything for the lost tie between her and the baby – she receives no remuneration and will be subject to the other party’s orders, in terms of when she gets to see the child, if at all. In many cases, there is an expectation that the carrier will simply be erased, and the child will never know who she is.
Between compensated and uncompensated surrogacy, we have a choice between baby-selling and baby-theft. (more...)
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