Towards A Professional Model Of Surrogate Motherhood

This book delves deeply into modern surrogacy arrangements, responding to both practical and ethical critiques by offering a radically new model for surrogate motherhood. Current practice distinguishes between two models of surrogacy – the altruistic (unpaid) model and the commercial (paid) model, both of which present social, ethical, and conceptual challenges. This book proposes a novel arrangement for surrogate motherhood – the professional model. Inspired by professions, such as nursing, teaching, and social work, the professional model acknowledges the caring motives that surrogate mothers have while at the same time compensating them for their work. Walker and Van Zyl adopt an evidence-based approach to explain that the professional model enables trust between intended parents and surrogates, provides professional support at every stage of the relationship, affords legal protections against exploitation and commodification, and recognizes the rights and interests of all parties, including the intended baby. The model applies to both transnational and domestic surrogacy and will be of great interest to policy makers, social researchers, bioethicists, legal scholars, fertility professionals, clinicians, and graduate students in psychology, philosophy, medicine and ethics.

Surrogate Motherhood: Conception in the Heart is a compelling account written with analytical clarity and remarkable compassion. Helena Ragoné has given long overdue humanity and voice to the actual participants in the surrogate motherhood experience—a heretofore inaccessible population—and the results are fascinating. Anyone interested in fertility, parenting, reproduction, and kinship, or anyone interested in contemporary culture will want to read this book.

With an Expanded Appendix on the Current Legal Status of Surrogacy Arrangements A practice known since Biblical times, surrogate motherhood has only recently leaped to prominence as a way of providing babies for childless couples—and leaped to notoriety through the dramatic case of Baby M. Contract surrogacy is officially little more than ten years old, but by 1986 five hundred babies had been born to mothers who gave them up to sperm donor fathers for a fee, and the practice is growing rapidly. Martha Field examines the myriad legal complexities that today enmesh surrogate motherhood, and also looks beyond existing legal rules to ask what society wants from surrogacy. A man’s desire to be a “biological” parent even when his wife is infertile—the father’s wife usually adopts the child—has led to this new kind of family, and modern technology could further extend surrogacy’s appeal by making gestational surrogates available to couples who provide both egg and sperm. But is surrogacy a form of babyselling? Is the practice a private matter covered by contract law, or does adoption law govern? Is it good or bad social and public policy to leave surrogacy unregulated? Should the law allow, encourage, discourage, or prohibit surrogate motherhood? Ultimately the answers will depend on what the American public wants. In the difficult process of sorting out such vexing questions, Martha Field has written a landmark book. Showing that the problem is rather too much applicable law than too little, she discusses contract law and constitutional law, custody and adoption law, and the rights of biological fathers as well as the laws governing sperm donation. Competing values are involved all along the legal and social spectrum. Field suggests that a federal prohibition would be most effective if banning surrogacy is the aim, but federal prohibition might not be chosen for a variety of reasons: a preference for regulating surrogacy instead of driving it underground; a preference for allowing regulation and variation by state; or a respect for the interests of people who want to enter surrogacy arrangements. Since the law can support a wide variety of positions, Field offers one that seems best to reconcile the competing values at stake. Whether or not paid surrogacy is made illegal, she suggests that a surrogate mother retain the option of abiding by or canceling the contract up to the time she freely gives the child to the adopting couple. And if she cancels the contract, she should be entitled to custody without having to prove in court that she would be a better parent than the father.

This book is a multi-disciplinary collection of essays from leading researchers and practitioners,exploring legal, ethical, social, psychological and practical aspects of surrogate motherhood in Britain and abroad. It highlights the common themes that characterise debates across countries as well as exploring the many differences in policies and practices. Surrogacy raises questions for medical and welfare practitioners and dilemmas for policy makers as well as ethical issues of concern to society as a whole. The international perspective adopted by this book offers an opportunity for questions of law, policy and practice to be shared and debated across countries. The book links contemporary views from research and practice with broader social issues and bio-ethical debates. The book will be of interest to an international audience of academics and their students (in law, social policy, reproductive medicine, psychology and sociology), practitioners (including doctors, counsellors, midwives and welfare professionals) as well as those involved in policy-making and implementation.

The observation that mater semper certa est remains accurate under most legal systems in the world. Maternity is defined as the personal status (filiation) of a woman who gave birth to a child. It is typically complemented by the fatherhood of the man from whom the child biologically originates (often quem nuptiae demonstrant). However, in some states, a kind of competitive way of acquiring the legal status of mother and father (or “homosexual parents A and B”) has been introduced via concluding a contract with a surrogate mother. Usually with a woman coming from poorer societies and with the assistance of professional intermediaries and organizers. The postulates to change substantive family law, or at least to recognize the effects of foreign law and procedures (a kind of “procreative tourism”), appear nowadays also in states generally prohibiting surrogate motherhood. The issues discussed in this volume concern both national law and international court cases. Recent examples include the opinion of the European Court of Human Rights of 10 April 2019 initiated by the French Cour de cassation, the judgement of the German Bundesgerichtshofof 20 March 2019, and dilemmas of Polish administrative courts. Focusing on the international perspective, the present volume as well as an accompanying book in Polish are the results of the international cooperation of over 30 experts from both member states and observer states of the Council of Europe. The monograph is structured “from the general to the detail” and includes a comprehensive view as well: from the issues of philosophy and sociology of law, to human rights standards of national constitutions and international agreements, to principles of ordre public of forum and their protection with measures of private, public, and penal law. This allows readers, including legislators and judges, the better understanding of the fundamental legal problems that surrogate motherhood brings, both in states where law creates them in a narrower or wider extent, and in other countries of the world, to which these problems can be imported with the movement of people and with de lege lata and de lege ferenda postulates.

While the practice of surrogacy has existed for millennia, new fertility technologies have allowed women to act as gestational surrogates, carrying children that are not genetically their own. While some women volunteer to act as gestational surrogates for friends or family members, others get paid for performing this service. The first ethnographic study of gestational surrogacy in the United States, Labor of Love examines the conflicted attitudes that emerge when the ostensibly priceless act of bringing a child into the world becomes a paid occupation. Heather Jacobson interviews not only surrogate mothers, but also their family members, the intended parents who employ surrogates, and the various professionals who work to facilitate the process. Seeking to understand how gestational surrogates perceive their vocation, she discovers that many regard surrogacy as a calling, but are reluctant to describe it as a job. In the process, Jacobson dissects the complex set of social attitudes underlying this resistance toward conceiving of pregnancy as a form of employment. Through her extensive field research, Jacobson gives readers a firsthand look at the many challenges faced by gestational surrogates, who deal with complicated medical procedures, delicate work-family balances, and tricky social dynamics. Yet Labor of Love also demonstrates the extent to which advances in reproductive technology are affecting all Americans, changing how we think about maternity, family, and the labor involved in giving birth. For more, visit http://www.heatherjacobsononline.com/

In an analysis of legislative responses to surrogacy in New York and California, the author explores how discourses about gender, family, race, genetics, rights, and choice have shaped policies aimed at this issue. She examines the views of legislators, women's organizations, religious groups, the media, and others.

This study addresses the two most controversial issues in surrogate motherhood: the commercial aspect of the practice and the issue of parental rights. After setting the legal and moral backdrop of procreative liberty in general, Rae argues that commercial surrogacy is the moral equivalent of baby-selling and should be prohibited. Add to this the potential for exploitation of the surrogate in practices that are already in motion and it is not hard to see the potential for harm to the parties involved. The book concludes with a survey of state and international law to date on surrogacy and a sample legislative proposal that could be adopted by states that are currently deliberating the issues. The commercial aspect of surrogacy makes it a potentially profitable business, not only for the surrogates but also for the brokers who facilitate the arrangements. This book promotes careful forethought, a reconsideration of definitions of parenthood, and a thorough examination of cases past and pending.

This comprehensive book covers the research, theory, policy and practice context of unusual reproduction using third parties. Olga Van den Akker details the psychological adaptation required to continuing changes in public opinion, advances in technologies and new legislations in surrogate motherhood and discusses their impact at an individual, societal and global level. She describes the competing interests and interactions between legal, organisational, personal, social, psychological and cultural issues in relation to biological and genetic surrogate and commissioning parenthood. This book is intended for professionals, practitioners, academics and students interested in the complexities of unusual reproduction using multidisciplinary perspectives.