Ethical Case against Surrogacy, The
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Authors
Dougherty, Charles J.
Issue Date
1992
Volume
25
Issue
Type
Journal Article
Language
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
FIRST PARAGRAPH(S)|In its purest form, a surrogate mother has no genetic link to the child she bears. An embryo genetically related to another couple is implanted in her uterus. The surrogate is a mother only biologically and only for nine months; she gives the child to its genetic parents at birth.|When all goes as planned, a healthy and very much wanted child is born, and the three adults involved all get what they wanted. But are such surrogacy contracts ethically acceptable? Should they be legal? No was the unanimous view of eight scholars at a recent conference on the issues of surrogate motherhood and reproductive technologies at Creighton University. In the proceedings record of the conference contained in the following pages, a variety of reasons against surrogacy are developed.|First, several of the religious traditions represented at the conference have family-linked problems with surrogacy. On some interpretations, surrogacy may be a form of adultery. Although the genetic parents have no sexual relations with the surrogate mother, there plainly is a reproductive relation with the surrogate, a third party outside the marriage. Surrogacy might also lead to incest of a sort. The child born to the surrogate and raised by genetic parents might marry another offspring of the surrogate mother, a second child she gestated for others or a genetic descendent conceived in the traditional manner. While there would be no genetic relationship between them, such marriage partners would be siblings - after a fashion. Inheritance questions could also become confounded. Does a child born from surrogacy have any right to inherit from a birth mother? Finally, some hold that such dramatic interference with the natural generative process is a violation of God's will...
Description
Citation
25 Creighton L. Rev. 1585 (1991-1992)
Publisher
Creighton University School of Law