Birth Parents want Surrogate Mom to Abort Down's Baby

[adgal]

With surrogacy becoming more and more common, issues such as this are bound to arise more often.  What do you think?  I think this is a very very difficult situation.

Couple urges surrogate to abort Down syndrome baby
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When a Canadian couple learned their surrogate mother was carrying a fetus that was likely to be born with Down syndrome, they demanded an abortion.

The surrogate didn't want to abort the child, according to the National Post, and so the child's fate became about the surrogacy contract.

As more people turn to a third party to carry their babies, sticky situations like this are challenging the ethics of surrogacy. When all three people involved in a surrogacy aren't on the same page, what should happen?
The ethics of surrogacy: What happens when the fetus has a defect?

Shutterstock/NatesPics

The ethics of surrogacy: What happens when the fetus has a defect?

According to the couple's agreement with the surrogate, if the surrogate birthed the child, the biological parents wouldn't have any legal responsibility for the child.

But many legal experts are saying that if this situation had been brought to court the surrogacy contract would have been disregarded. Instead the court would draw from family law requiring the biological parents to support the child.

It's hard to know what would have happened because a surrogacy contract has never been contested in a Canadian court, according to the National Post, and the surrogate in this case never filed a lawsuit and decided to have an abortion in the end.

This story is getting attention all over the world, and many experts are speaking up with conflicting views. Some believe that surrogacy contracts should be followed in all situations; others are saying that these contracts are wrongly treating children as "widgets in a factory."

Juliet Guichon of the University of Calgary said, "Should the rules of commerce apply to the creation of children? No, because children get hurt. It's kind of like stopping the production line: 'Oh, oh, there's a flaw.' It makes sense in a production scenario, but in reproduction it's a lot more problematic."

Sally Rhoads of SurrogacyInCanada.ca disagrees and said, "The baby that's being carried is their baby. It's usually their genetic offspring. Why should the intended parents be forced to raise a child they didn't want? It's not fair."

Over at Jezebel blogger Anna North sums it all up: "We can judge the parents for changing their minds when they found out their future child would have special needs, but parents who conceive without assistance are still free to abort for these reasons. We can liken the parents to a father who refuses child support -- but then, such fathers don't sign contracts prior to conception stipulating situations where they will and won't pay (though some have argued that they should)."

In fact, surrogacy is one of the few situations where pregnancy actually becomes a legal agreement, and if we make it easy to declare this agreement void, we might make it very hard for people to work with surrogates at all," North adds. "If anything, this case should underscore the need for prospective parents and surrogates to discuss all possible outcomes of the pregnancy very clearly at the outset, and make sure they have compatible views on abortion."

What do you think? Did the biological parents have a right to push the surrogate to abort?

Posted By: Amy Graff (Email, Twitter, Facebook) | October 06 2010 at 06:19 PM


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=74005#ixzz11ojGLmzG

[adgal]

I 100% agree with you.  I am actually trying to have another baby and am almost 42 (I have an 8 month old son born just before I turned 41).  Of course when you choose to have children at a bit of an older age, the subject of DS does come up.  We would not terminate.  When I was pregnant with my son, based on screening, he had a 1:13 chance of having DS...we decided then we would not terminate.  I would no more do that then I would "get rid of" my son if as he gets older it turns out he has disabilities or whatever life may throw his way.  To me, that is what you prepare for when you choose to have a child.  

That being said, I am firmly pro choice, even though it is not a choice I would make myself.  The dilemma here is in the surrogacy issue.  The biological parents wanted the surrogate mother to terminate (in this case it was the biological parents egg and sperm) and the surrogate did not want to.  With surrogacy becoming more and more common, this is an issue that I am certain will come up time and time again...so who has the right to make that decision?  I just thought it was an interesting case and does present a dilemma...ultimately whose decision is it?  I cannot imagine anyone making me terminate, whether it was my biological child I was carrying or someone elses.  However, surrogacy contracts dictate that the carrier has no claim and no rights to the child whatsover...yet it is her body...

In this case the surrogate was firmly against termination, even though that is ultimately what she did.

It might be different in the US as the laws are a bit different.  Here in Canada a surrogate mother is not allowed to be paid for her services..it's illegal.  Just as a donor, egg or sperm, cannot be paid..very different then US law where these donors and surrogates can make a fair chunk of money...but when you are not being paid, I have to wonder if it came down to law, if it would not give you more claim?  I don't know, just speculating.

[ILADVOCATE]

  I don't approve of the idea in general. I know people with Down's Syndrome who have had happy productive lives. There are other diseases or conditions such as Tay Sach's Disease where a child lives two years in every case and severally suffers and others such as amenocepholy where there are born with the rudiments of a brain and live only a few days (the first can be screened out with genetic testing, the second prevented by taking folic acid). The ethics of abortion when the child will suffer severely are complex.  
  However when a child could live a life with some limitations but that would have a normal life span and not cause suffering abortion should not enter the picture. In many ways it shouldn't at all and if people have concerns that is what genetic testing is for so parents don't concieve to begin with. I do know with today's genetic testing I would not be alive because many people would not want to carry a child to term with schizophrenia. Its the child's best interest that matters and saying life with a disability is not worth living has aspects of euthanasia and is an issue we would not want to revisit ethically.