Is it Time to Reconsider Surrogacy?

 

 This guest post is from Regent Family Law student Ryan Bianchi:

          When it comes to surrogacy laws, the United States truly is the Wild West. Few countries rival the United States’ unfettered access to surrogacy. Commercial surrogacy is prohibited in the entirety of the European Union. The United Kingdom, Denmark, and Belgium allow surrogacy only in altruistic circumstances. Most European states—regardless of how secular or progressive—have outlawed the practice of surrogacy altogether. Nations without a significant church presence, such as Iceland, Norway, and Finland, have completely banned surrogacy, dispelling the myth that anti-surrogacy legislation is propelled by a certain religious or political ideology. The U.S. joins nations like Russia and Ukraine in permitting the for-profit buying and selling of human beings. What would otherwise be considered human trafficking under any other circumstance has been fashionably rebranded as “surrogacy.”

          Twenty-seven states have enacted legislation regulating the timeline for buying and selling puppies. Most states require newborn puppies to remain with their mother for at least eight weeks. In some jurisdictions, like Nevada, state law requires dog breeders to consider whether the puppy has become accustomed to receiving nourishment independent from its mother before it may be separated. Our legislatures have taken a strong interest in protecting puppies from premature separation from their mothers, as they understand that decades of studies have shown the disastrous effects premature separation can yield.

Yet, no such laws regulate the forceful separation of a human child from the mother who birthed it. Western Fertility Institute (“WFI”), a pro-surrogacy organization, openly concedes the negative effects separation at birth has on a child. Despite this admission, WFI goes on to explain that the “physical transfer” of the surrogate newborn should be “completed at the hospital once the baby has arrived.” These struggles for children born via surrogacy have been well-documented. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry found that children of surrogacy experience significant adjustment difficulties and distress. Perhaps even more concerning, the National Library of Medicine has noted the complete lack of scientific studies regarding the effects of surrogacy on children older than preschool age.

For many Christians, surrogacy is an ethical issue they have never fully contemplated. Most rightfully empathize with women who cannot physically carry a child. Empathy is a virtue; Jesus commands us to “weep with those who weep,” including the heartbroken woman who wants to experience the joy of carrying her biological child to term. However, empathy should never be a vehicle for endorsing harmful conduct. Christians cannot allow empathy to convince them that the forceful removal of a child from his or her birth mother is good or right. Children are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of our Creator, not a good to be placed on the market. Women are gifted with the ability to carry human life within them, not to serve as reproduction factories to supply the market. When considering the best interest of the child, decades of research indicate surrogacy is not a means of accomplishing this goal. It is far past due for the Church to consider whether the unregulated buying and selling of unborn human beings is a practice we view favorably.