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Ethical arguments for surrogacy
Introduction to In Vitro Fertilization
Ethical arguments for surrogacy
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Surrogacy is a modern medical treatment, which is the process that a woman carries and delivers the baby for another person or another couple. Ethical problems of this medical technology have been discussed frequently in recent years. Some arguments support surrogacy, some against. Those arguments and ethical issues involved in will be discussed in this paper.
From the scientific point of view, there are two major types of surrogacy, which are traditional surrogacy and gestational surrogacy (Brinsden 484). Those two types of surrogacy use different techniques, but they both can achieve the goal of surrogacy.
In the technical process of traditional surrogacy, the woman who undergoes the surrogacy arrangement, which is called gestational surrogate, will go through the treatment of natural insemination or artificial insemination by using fresh or frozen sperms (Brinsden 485). The natural insemination refers to the insemination by sexual intercourse performed by the gestational surrogate and a sperm donor. By ejaculating within the reproductive track of the gestational surrogate during sexual intercourse, the egg from the gestational surrogate and the sperm from the sperm donor will naturally combine and form the zygote in the fallopian tube of this woman (Brinsden 487). The natural insemination is simple and cheap, and it does not require additional techniques to form the zygote, but it may be hard to be performed or accepted by people like lesbian couples, single women or infertile men. The artificial insemination refers to the direct introduction of semen from the sperm donor into the vagina or oviduct of the gestational surrogate to achieve a pregnancy. After tracking the menstrual cycle of the gestational surrogate, s...
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...No. 2, pp. 151-152, 2009. Print.
Hofman, Darra L. “Mama's Baby, Daddy's Maybe: A State-by-State Survey of Surrogacy Laws and Their Disparate Gender Impact”, William Mitchell Law Review. Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 449-468, 2009. Print.
Jadva, Vasanti, Clare Murray, Emma Lycett, Fiona MacCallum and Susan Golombok. “Surrogacy: The Experiences Of Surrogate Mothers”, Human Reproduction. Vol. 18, No. 10, pp. 2196-2204, 2003. Print.
Nelson, James Lindemann, “Parental Obligations and the Ethics of Surrogacy: A Causal Perspective”, Public Affairs Quarterly. Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 49-61, 1991. Print.
Nlekerk, Anton van, and Liezl van Zyl, “The Ethics of Surrogacy: Women’s Reproductive Labour”, Journal of Medical Ethics. No. 21, pp. 345-349, 1995. Print.
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Works Cited Warren, Mary Anne. On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion. Trans. Array Exploring Ethics: An Introductory Anthology. . 2 nd.
Our culture has a stringent belief that creating new life if a beautiful process which should be cherished. Most often, the birth process is without complications and the results are a healthy active child. In retrospect, many individuals feel that there are circumstances that make it morally wrong to bring a child into the world. This is most often the case when reproduction results in the existence of another human being with a considerably reduced chance at a quality life. To delve even further into the topic, there are individuals that feel they have been morally wronged by the conception in itself. Wrongful conception is a topic of debate among many who question the ethical principles involved with the sanctity of human life. This paper will analyze the ethical dilemmas of human dignity, compassion, non-malfeasance, and social justice, as well the legal issues associated with wrongful conception.
A surrogacy is the carrying of a pregnancy for intended parents. There are two kinds of surrogacy: “Gestational”, in which the egg and sperm belong to the intended parents and is carried by the surrogate, and “traditional”, where the surrogate is inseminated with the intended father’s sperm. Regardless of the method, I believe that surrogacy cannot be morally justified. Surrogacy literally means “substitute”, or “replacement”. A surrogate is a replacement for a mother for that 9-month period of pregnancy, and therefore is reducing the role of the surrogate mother to an oversimplified and dehumanizing labor. The pregnancy process for the gestational mother can be very physically and mentally demanding, and is unique because after birthing the
I believe that surrogacy is morally suspicious and that surrogacy contracts should not be enforceable. I am persuaded by the arguments of Lisa S. Cahill and her stance on surrogacy. Cahill follows the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Natural Law. According to RCNL, sex is a conjugal act with purpose of unity and procreation, and procreation is collaborative. Also, treating a person as a means to an end is always morally wrong. The unity of marriage is intended for reproduction, conceived between two people within the marriage. Surrogacy should not involve a third party to avoid dualism. These main points will be elaborated on in the context of an argument on surrogacy.
For many years, infertile couples have had difficulty facing the reality that they can not have children. According to Nidus Information Services Incorporated, 6.2 million women in the United States are infertile. This problem leads to many options. A few options have been used for a long period of time: the couple could adopt a child or keep trying to have a child themselves. For those couples that want to have their own children, there are new options arising. In vetro fertilization is an option that gives couples the chance to have a doctor combine the male's sperm and the woman's eggs in a petri dish and implant them into the woman's womb after the artificial conception. This may result in multiple pregnancies - more than five in some cases. This does not only occur in implantation, however. Many times the patient's doctor will ask her to consider selective reduction: aborting a few fetuses to save the ones she can. In a case of multiple pregnancy, selective reduction should be considered an option.
The constantly growing field of medical technology has raised many questions especially pertaining to ethics. The mapping of the human genome, cloning technologies, stem cell research, and of course reproductive technology has caused some very real dilemmas over the role of the human decision in the creation and orientation of new life. Humans are able to accomplish amazing things in science, but at what cost? The ubiquitous nature of reproductive technology has caused a new discipline of reproductive ethics. One such dilemma is that of selective abortion due to sex preference. In this paper I will discuss the ethics of gendercide and sonography’s affect on this practice
Sheldon, Sally. "Unwilling Fathers And Abortion: Terminating Men's Child Support Obligations?" Modern Law Review 66.2 (2003): 175-194.Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.
Ricci, Mariella Lombardi. "Assisted Procreation And Its Relationship To Genetics And Eugenics." Human Reproduction & Genetic Ethics 15.1 (2009): 9-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
The addition of a child into a family’s home is a happy occasion. Unfortunately, some families are unable to have a child due to unforeseen problems, and they must pursue other means than natural pregnancy. Some couples adopt and other couples follow a different path; they utilize in vitro fertilization or surrogate motherhood. The process is complicated, unreliable, but ultimately can give the parents the gift of a child they otherwise could not have had. At the same time, as the process becomes more and more advanced and scientists are able to predict the outcome of the technique, the choice of what child is born is placed in the hands of the parents. Instead of waiting to see if the child had the mother’s eyes, the father’s hair or Grandma’s heart problem, the parents and doctors can select the best eggs and the best sperm to create the perfect child. Many see the rise of in vitro fertilization as the second coming of the Eugenics movement of the 19th and early 20th century. A process that is able to bring joy to so many parents is also seen as deciding who is able to reproduce and what child is worthy of birthing.
Hinman, Lawrence. “Abortion: A Guide to the Ethical Issues.” May 13, 2010. University of San
Surrogacy is becoming extremely popular as a way for people to build their families and women to have a source of income. Many people have various reasons for their opposition to it whether it be by comparing it to prostitution or disagreeing with how military wives take advantage of the Tricare insurance. Lorraine Ali states in her article “The Curious Lives of Surrogates” that one of the more popular reasons to oppose surrogacy is that it contradicts, “what we’ve always thought of as an unbreakable bond between mother and child.” However, a woman’s inability to conceive her own children does not determine the absence of a mother to child bond.
Gestational surrogacy, especially when it involves commercial surrogates, challenges the status quo in the ethical theory of reproduction, because with this technology the process of producing a child can no longer remain a private matter. Now a public contract exists between two parties, the couple and the surrogate ...
Warren, Mary Anne , and Mappes and D. DeGrazia. "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion." Biomedical Ethics 4th (1996): 434-440. Print.
Arguments against commercial surrogacy typically revolve around the idea that surrogacy is a form of child-selling. Critics believe that commercial surrogacy violates both women’s and children’s rights. In addition, by making surrogacy contracts legally enforceable, courts will follow the contract rather than choose what is best for the child. However, in her article “Surrogate Mothering: Exploring Empowerment” Laura Pudry is not convinced by these arguments.
Commercial surrogacy commodifies children because by paying the surrogate mother to give up her child, they treat the child as an object of exchange or commodity that can be bought and sold. As any business transaction, the parents give money for the exchange of an object, the child. The parents get their desired child and the mother gets the money, but what about what thee child think about this event? The parents and surrogate mother’s action were done with self-interest. It could be argued that they wanted the best for the child. However, the first priority in the intentional procreation of the child was not the welfare of the child but rather to give it up to the parents in exchange of money. Additionally, women’s labor is commodified because the surrogate mother treats her parental rights as it was a property right not as a trust. In other words, the decisions taken concerning the child are not done primarily for the benefit of the child. The act of the mother relenting her parental rights is done for a monetary price. She disposes of her parental rights, which are to be managed for the welfare of the owner, as if they were property right, which are to be handled for personal