The Potential And Perils Of International Commercial Surrogacy

Padma and Sanjay flew all the way from from London to India to meet their new son for the very first time. Nine months earlier, the ecstatic couple had flown to a commercial surrogacy clinic to donate their eggs and sperm to conceive a child, which was then implanted into a woman paid to carry their child to term. Moments after the child was delivered by cesarean section, their biological baby was in their arms. The woman who carried the child to term was crying in the delivery room, but she was happy to know she would soon be paid the equivalent of about $9,000, which was an unimaginable sum for most families living in India, out of about the $30,000 Padma and Sanjay paid to the comercial surrogacy clinic.

Paulo and João, a gay couple living in Lisbon, flew to Los Angeles to meet their new baby son, just like Padma and Sanjay. Nine months earlier, they too had traveled long distances to the United States to donate sperm to fertilize an egg purchased from an American woman of Portuguese heritage, not knowing who would actually become the baby's biological father. Paulo and João paid altogether about $200,000 for the surrogacy and the procedures needed to sustain the pregnancy, and about $50,000 going to the woman who was pregnant for them.

Commercial surrogacy can be a great way to welcome a special someone into your home if you and your partner can't conceive a child together, but it can also come with unanticipated problems. Now legal in a few states in America, in Mexico, and in India, commercial surrogacy is becoming more and more popular. Before eager parents start booking a plane, however, you and your partner will need to deeply consider all of the potential perils a commercial surrogacy might have.

What Is Commercial Surrogacy?

Millions of heterosexual couples cannot have children because the female partner has some insurmountable problem in ovulation, conception, or carrying a child to term. Millions of male-male homosexual couples face a more obvious barrier to parenthood. For the past thirty years, however, modern technology has made "test tube babies" a reality, although at a huge financial burden to the would-be parents. Despite the availability of the technology, many countries, including Germany and much of the European Union, ban surrogate pregnancies altogether. The United Kingdom and Canada permit "altruistic surrogacy", a woman's becoming pregnant to support the wishes of another couple, usually people she knows, for free, but nine months of pregnancy is a lot to ask from a friend, much less a stranger.

See Also: Becoming A Surrogate Mother: Issues To Consider

Questions To Ask About Surrogacy In The USA

American medical care, if you have money, is of a very high standard, but America is nothing if not a land of litigation. To avoid future legal disputes, the rights of the prospective parents, the surrogate mother, and the child are carefully spelled out before the procedure is done. There are clear legal remedies if one or more of the parties fails to live up to their commitments, and there is a clear legal status for the baby when it is born (or the state does not permit the arrangement). Even in the USA, however, there are basic questions that prospective parents need to consider before they plunk down $100 thousand, $200 thousand, or occasionally even more to have a child:

• Is the surrogacy agreement legal in the state in which it is offered? New York, for example, bans paid surrogate pregnancies, while California supports them. Don't rely on a clinic's word for the legality of a procedure. See your own attorney.

How To Avoid Unnecessary Pitfalls In Surrogate Pregancy

Other questions prospective parents need to ask before they use services in the United States include:

• Is there a clear understanding of who the legal parents of the child will be? Splitting motherhood between two women, or between a woman and a gay or lesbian couple, is never in the best interest of the child.
• What is the plan if the fetus is found to suffer severe medical abnormalities? How will the child's medical care be paid for, and where? The United States has complicated laws that never require a surrogate mother to have an abortion, but allow the biological parents to sue her for the costs of wrongful birth. This needs to be worked out before the procedure.
• If the plan is to take the child out of the United States, will he or she be permitted to enter the destination country? In some European countries, declaring the child to be the result of a paid surrogacy can result in criminal prosecution. In many countries, same-sex couples or unmarried couples cannot legally adopt. Every child born in the United States is entitled to a US passport, but the parents' home country may require them to be naturalized, often at great expense. Older Chinese parents seeking a second child, however, often find that the baby's American passport allows them to bring the child to China without having to deal with the two-child rule.
• Will the surrogate be paid more for multiple births, or for a cesarean section? If her pregnancy is complicated and she is not able to work, who will make sure she has adequate income while she is carrying the child? What happens to the baby if the intended parents die during the procedure? Will "extra embryos" to ensure the success of the pregnancy be aborted?

Prospective parents who can afford the costs of surrogacy usually go to the United States. A price tag of just $30 thousand to $50 thousand elsewhere, can be extremely attractive, especially to couples who have exhausted their financial resources on in vitro fertilization procedures that did not work.

The kinds of problems that arise in surrogacies outside the United States include:

• Hidden fees and charges. Some parents pay $25,000 to $30,000 for the initial procedure, and are billed tens of thousands of dollars more for tests and medical treatment.
• Multiple embryos. Knowing that payment usually will not be made if a pregnancy fails, some clinics will implant multiple embryos in the surrogate with the expectation that at least one will survive. The parents may be offered one baby when they arrive at the clinic, only to be told they must pay for its siblings or they will (and in many cases they actually will) be sold to the highest bidder. Conversely, some clinics are willing to work with unscrupulous parents who ask for the "pick of the litter" of multiple births. Any clinic willing to do this probably cuts other ethical corners.
• Ethical issues. Surrogates don't always get paid for their pregnancies. Many parents will want to make sure the woman who carries their child is treated well. For them, attorneys can work out agreements with women who live normal lives, outside of the surrogacy clinic, during the pregnancies, but with greater risk of pregnancy complications.

See Also: Using A Surrogate Mother To Carry Your Baby: Is Gestational Surrogacy For You?