Commercial Surrogacy Turns Women into Machines, Babies into Products

An awful story has broken into the headlines illustrating the moral peril of commercial surrogacy. From the Texas Tribune story:

[McKenna] West, a nurse, entered a surrogacy agreement in Alaska, where she lives, with the intended parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, through Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists, LLC, a Connecticut-based surrogacy agency. Typically under gestational agreements like the one that West signed with Gilkar and Ahmed, the intended parents, not the surrogate, have the parental rights to make choices relating to the fetus.

The fetus West is carrying was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome at 20 weeks of pregnancy, and Gilkar and Ahmed allegedly asked her to undergo an abortion and they have said they will refuse to let the baby undergo treatment after he is born, according to Paxton’s Monday filing.

West has since traveled to Texas and has asked the Dallas court to recognize her parental right as the birth mother to intervene in medical treatment for the baby.…

The Hill reported that Texas AG Paxton alleges the parents will refuse heart surgery that can save the baby’s life:

Paxton’s office said the unborn child was diagnosed with the condition at 20 weeks and is expected to be born “imminently with a serious but treatable heart condition.”

Baby Gabriel’s doctors recommended the Norwood procedure, which is the first of the three after-birth surgeries that are the standard treatment for the condition, according to a letter Paxton’s office sent to two hospitals in Dallas.

Paxton’s office also alleged that the intended parents refused to give consent for the procedures and may seek to transport baby Gabriel to California to prevent doctors from performing them.

We have to remember that is an allegation. It may or may not be true.

Meanwhile, CBS reported that the court ruling will protect the child once born:

On Tuesday, the court ordered life-saving medical care be provided upon Baby Gabriel’s birth and not be delayed. The order prevents anyone from withholding or obstructing necessary treatment or removing, discharging, or transferring the child while the court considers the case.

But not before birth:

The court’s order reads, in part: “The relief ordered below concerns the child’s care and protection only from the moment of the child’s live birth. Nothing in this Order adjudicates the rights of, or directs medical care for, an unborn child, and nothing in this Order limits the right of the woman who will give birth to the child to make decisions to safeguard her own health or the health of the pregnancy.”

What can we discern about the essential dehumanizing nature of commercial surrogacy from this case?

• Commercial surrogacy contracts can treat the (usually poor) women hired to be surrogates as mere baby-making machines, hence the term “gestational carrier” in reproductive industry parlance.
• Commercial surrogacy — and some other reproductive technologies — essentially treat babies as so many products. So, they are tested genetically for eugenics purposes and may be selected for gestation based on desired sex, etc.
• Products involve quality control and the right of return for those that are “defective.” The hiring parents in this case would appear to not want an unhealthy or disabled baby. Hence the command to abort and (alleged) intent to refuse consent to the surgery that can save the baby’s life once born.
• Family formation via reproductive technologies has become a growth industry. Most customers want to deeply love the child that is born. But this is a form of baby buying, and a few customers have less altruistic motives.

What does this case tell us about our culture? On one hand, we will allow virtually anything to enable family formation. And, on the other, many states permit abortion through the ninth month. It’s enough to give one cultural whiplash.

How do we reconcile these two truths? It seems to me we are no longer governed by core moral principles so much as the great maws of “I want!” and “I don’t want!” Personal freedom includes the fulfillment of desires, of course. But should that be the most important factor of moral acceptability? I think not.