Biological mom loses custody of child she signed away in traditional surrogacy agreement

August 03, 2007

Biological mom loses custody of child she signed away in traditional surrogacy agreement

The nightmare scenario has happened, and not for the first time. (Read the full story here). This time it is in the UK, but it has happened a few times in the U.S. as well. Here the mom -admittedly psychologically imbalanced and apparently driven by a "compulsive desire to bear further children" - agreed to be impregnanted by the sperm of a stranger, and she signed an agreement to give up the child to that stranger and his wife. But once the child was born, lo and behold she refused to give it up. She kept her son, who is now 17 months old.

Alas, the court found that the boy's "natural father" and his wife would be "better parents" for the boy than his de facto natural mother and her husband. So, the woman now has to follow up on her agreement and give up her own son - a forced adoption, really.

What a convoluted case. This is the twisted world that we are sinking into as surrogacy becomes mainstream and socially acceptable. We are playing fire with natural human emotions, attachments and relationships. When babies are conceived with gametes from two people who wouldn't touch each other with a ten-foot pole, then we are asking for these kinds of problems. When we ask women to sign away their natural right to the child conceived and born of them, we are guaranteeing these kinds of problems.

The biological parents here both want the child, they both love him, and they both have an equal, "natural" (as the court put it) right to the child. But they were never married, they were never in a relationship, they were never physical and possibly they don't even know each other - and at this point they hate each other. So for the child, this is a zero-sum game: he has to lose one to win one, and by winning one he loses the other. It's clear that in such an arrangement, the child is the loser. The only winners here are the adults - the bio mom gets $$$ in her pocket (though she nurses a broken heart) and the bio dad gets his precious baby boy, predictably the "most wanted and loved baby in the world.".

No comments:

Post a Comment

Stop the Baby Trade

Yes, it is a baby trade, like the slave trade of old. Babies have become consumer products, accessories to our lifestyles. They are like pets, those cute and cuddly babies. And like pets, they can be made to your liking. Just buy the sperm at your nearest sperm bank, purchase an egg from your local egg dealer, and rent a surrogate womb. And in 9 months, bring home a baby without a pregnancy, without even a dent in your schedule!

There is supply and there is demand. Babies are disposable: their value and worth depend on being "wanted". As embryos they can receive a life or death sentence based on a screening of their genetic traits. They can be frozen indefinitely, donated for research or simply killed. In the womb they can be "selectively reduced". They belong to whomever they were "intended" for.

Apparently, adults have a "right" to a baby. And before they are born, babies have no rights at all. They can be bought and sold, or traded from person to person.

Even after they are born, some of their natural rights are not recognized or respected. They had better not complain about not having their "natural" or biological parents. If they mind, they are ungrateful. After all, we cuddle them and spoil them and shower them with love - just like our pets.

Well, it's time to stop the baby trade. Infertility is tragic. So is being panhandled by your own genetic parents and being raised by biological strangers. So is being created in a laboratory only to be frozen as "surplus" or screened out and left to die because you are "unwanted".

Children have not consented to these things. Their own parents, their supposed protectors, have allowed these things to happen to them. Adults have selfishly allowed their reproductive urges to trample on the fundamental rights and needs of their own children. But now, as many of these children come of age and we hear their cries of pain, it is time to admit that what reproductive technologies have given to parents, they have also taken away from children.

Sometimes doing the right thing requires a lot of sacrifice. This is one of those times. We need to set aside our adult desires in order to protect children's rights. Let's see babies as human beings who are our equals. Let’s admit that we have no right to harm others to get what we want. Let’s stand up for those who don’t have a signature line on the consent forms, yet who will be forever affected by the decisions taken.

We will find that by protecting the weakest, we are also protecting ourselves. The rights of children are tied to the rights of adults. Children have a right to their own parents; and those parents also have a natural right to know and to educate their own biological children. These natural rights cannot be eliminated, only violated.

Let’s stand up for the natural human rights of children: their right to life from the moment of conception, their right to be carried in the womb of their own biological mother, and their right to know and be raised by their own biological parents.