Pro-surrogacy
groups argue it’s time the law recognizes some women as breeders.
October
13, 2014 By Christopher White
While
visiting some friends of mine who had recently given birth to their new
daughter in a Manhattan hospital, I couldn’t resist perusing the institutional
paperwork addressed to the “Dear Mother, Parent, Person Carrying the Child.”
Such a salutation represents a new and worrisome trend where both the meaning
and definition of motherhood is being challenged by the rise of reproductive
technologies.
The rise
of designer babies through the increased usage of “elite” donor eggs and sperm
is practically old news. So, too, are reports of the miracle of birth being
achieved through in vitro fertilization (IVF)—just recently NBC’s “Today” show featured a segment reporting on the birth
of the first child conceived through a live, on-air IVF procedure. But the
demand for donor or paid wombs is just now beginning to gain attention—even if
it remains a rapidly growing enterprise.
While
there is no mandated tracking of how many children are born through surrogacy
each year, the Society for Reproductive Medicine estimates that 1,989 children
were born through gestational surrogacy in 2012. Most news stories that cover
the practice often focus on the gift of life provided by the surrogate to a
couple, with the narrative always being one of praise for the surrogate’s
altruism and the joy brought to the intended parents. Although these stories
dominate much of the discussion, there are other stories that need to be
heard—particularly from the surrogates themselves.
When a Mother Isn’t a Mother
Gail
Robinson was in her forties when she agreed to serve as a surrogate for her
brother and his partner. Gail relocated from her home in Texas to New Jersey
with the agreement that the three of them would raise the children together.
Due to her age, the group selected donor eggs, and on the first try she became
pregnant with twins.
Pro-surrogacy
groups opposed the bill for its use of the term ‘mother’ instead of their
preferred term: ‘carrier.’
In a new documentary
film, “Breeders: A Subclass of Women?,” Gail reflects on the early
months of her pregnancy: “At the beginning, our relationship was good. We
expected a happy ending.” Yet as the pregnancy continued, the relationship with
her brother and his partner became increasingly tense as they placed enormous
pressures on her. Gail had sold her house and her business to relocate to New
Jersey—all under the promise that her brother and his partner would care for
her as she prepared to become the mother of their children. Later in the
pregnancy, due to the stress and friction, they would request that she have an
abortion so that they could “get some other stupid female to have my children.”
Today, Gail is the happy mother of twin girls—although she only has visitation
three times a week. While she’s been legally declared to be the mother of her
twins, she never imagined that this process would result in limited custody and
that her motherhood would ever have to be decided and protected by litigation.
In a
recent bill that aimed to legalize surrogacy in Louisiana (that was later
vetoed by Gov. Bobby Jindal), the pro-surrogacy groups American Society for
Reproductive Medicine and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology,
opposed the bill for its use of the term “mother” instead of their preferred
term: “carrier.” In the court proceedings following Gail’s case, the attorney
representing her brother argued that the law simply needs to recognize some women
as breeders. And as my friends in their Manhattan hospital discovered, those
within the medical industry are now adopting such terminology in an effort to
make legal distinctions between “mothers” and “surrogates.”
Separating Mothers and Children
Such reasoning,
however, has consequences for both the surrogate and the child in question. For
the nine-month gestational period, surrogates are reminded by health providers
that they must care for the child as if it is their own—getting proper rest,
receiving adequate medical care, and sticking to strict nutritional guidelines.
In other words, the surrogate must care for the child as if it were her own
because that child’s life depends on it—and it does. The surrogate must
then be a mother to the child she is carrying because the child depends on her,
and, in fact, knows no other mother.
Both
the mother and the child suffer a ‘primal wound’ when a child is separated from
the mother who bore him or her.
Fast-forward
to the delivery of what is hopefully a healthy child; in that moment the
surrogate is no longer viewed or treated as a mother. The mother-child bond
that is encouraged by the medical profession for proper development of the
child during nine months of pregnancy is intentionally and very often dramatically
severed. As psychotherapist Nancy Verrier has termed, both the mother and the
child suffer a “primal wound” when a child is separated from the mother who
bore him or her.
Surrogacy
not only aids in this wounding process—but in states where it is legal, it
institutionalizes that potential harm. Today a national debate around the
merits of surrogacy is finally starting. Twenty-first century baby-making can
create children in the laboratory through buying and selling eggs, sperm, and
wombs. But achieving the possible has come at great peril—especially to the
women and children involved.
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