Love in the time of ‘designer babies’

Born of love or acquired as an object? This is the argument surrounding children born of surrogacy. While those in the business insist that such children are loved like no other, critics take the view that couples commissioning surrogacy are suppressing the child’s interest in favour of their own.

Founder of the Committee of Reproductive Ethics (CORE) Josephine Quintivalle envisages a future where nations the world-over will be holding ‘truth and reconciliation committees’ for surrogate children.  “There will be a lot of young adults asking how you could have thought it was okay to do this to us,” she says.

Editor of Bio-Edge, a website portal that features bio-ethics news, Michael Cook terms surrogacy ‘high-tech child abuse’ saying that: “A person's identity has a lot to do with certainty about biological origins.

“What surrogacy does is privilege the desire of a woman, or a couple, for a child above the need of a child for loving biological parents. The child is the first and primary victim of surrogacy.

“As you know, it is possible for a child to have as many as 5 parents through surrogacy -- commissioning parents, the donors of gametes, and a surrogate mother. Four would not be uncommon. We have no idea what effect this will have on the lives of children.”

Associate Professor at the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre and the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Alberta, Dr Laura Shanner says that due consideration should be given to the surrogate-foetus relationship.

She says: “From the perspective of the people who want to have the baby, the woman who carries the pregnancy is a surrogate or a stand-in for the infertile woman but as far as the baby is concerned, the woman who is pregnant- that is the only mother the baby has ever known.

 “Over a lifetime genetic ties will prove to be much more important but in the experience of a new-born who is a few hours or a few-days-old pre-natal ties are important. The baby responds to the voice of the woman who is pregnant in a way that it responds to nobody else. This effect will fade and rather quickly but early on in the life of a child it is very important. I don’t know what meaning this has for us over the long time but it definitely means more than nothing.”

Not surprisingly those in the business over-ride these view points insisting that the parents’s love for the child conquers all.

Owner of Surrogacy Abroad Inc, an agency that guides couples through surrogacy, Benhur Samson says: “You know how kids are called accidental kids. Surrogate kids are no accidents. These parents have gone through hell and high water. These people have earned their babies. Their love for their children is unmatchable. I feel less of a parent when I see these parents after their child is born.”

Dr Nayana Patel, a gynaecologist at Akanksha Infertility Clinic, holds a similar view. She says that she has known of several couples who have been on the verge of divorce or separation and who have been brought them back together by their ‘overwhelming’ love for the new-born.

Parents via surrogacy, Trevor Elwell and Peter West have spoken to several psychologists about the potential impact surrogacy could have on their children.  They have met the oldest surrogate child in Australia-Alice and are seriously involved in activism relating to surrogacy.

Trevor Elwell says, “Will they suffer, won’t they suffer? It is all academic. Some people say yes, some say no. “We are conscious of these issues and we are just doing our best to ensure that our children don’t have these questions, concerns and worries.”