It is quite evident that we now live in a world of advanced technologies. One of the technological glooms of today is the use of surrogacy which is the practice of using another woman to carry the baby instead of the actual parents through implantation of their embryo into her. Many of us are already aware of this technology as Hollywood celebrity Sarah Jessica Parker was widely known for using a surrogate mother for the birth of her twin daughters back in 2009. But surrogacy is increasingly becoming more controversial in developing nations as it is commercialized without proper law enforcement to prevent abuses like here.
A New York Times article on Aug. 26, 2014, revealed more about the shadowy surrogate business in Thailand. There is a reason why surrogacy is more popular and gloomier there. Thailand is one of few countries in Southeast Asia that lawfully allows commercial surrogacy and many are hired by couples from wealthier countries like Australia and the United States to carry babies instead of the actual parents. The inherent pursuit of this business is good because it allows infertile people to have their own children and pay money to people in need to earn money in a relatively short time. However, this practice is becoming very controversial as more people are abusing this technology.
One Australian couple that had twins through a surrogate mother in Thailand decided to only take one of the children because the other baby was born with Down Syndrome. The father indicated, “I don’t think any parent wants a son with a disability.” This case became even more problematic when court records revealed him to be convicted and imprisoned 20 times for sexual abuse of children in the 1990s, questioning his fatherhood ability and rights to even use surrogacy.
Another dreadful case was discovered recently when the police raid in Bangkok clinics found that a Japanese man had fathered approximately a dozen babies through surrogates within weeks and months apart. The misuse of the practice in Thailand is raising concerns about the commercialization of the surrogacy business.
Many Thai women from rural regions are attracted to the surrogate business in order to earn money for survival and better lives. Most people who pay for the surrogacy are from developed nations. This shows the glooms of a globalized economy because it is overcoming the social moral that all of us consider important; that it makes humans a commodity and the subject of trade. Human lives are being traded whether the outcome may be potentially beneficial for both parties or not. Then the question rises, should surrogacy really be commercialized even when it, to some extent, violates the basic human norm of globalized trade?
But there are more problems than just the moral contradictions. The problem rises in legal fields; whether the foreign couples that pay for this could successfully bring their child out of countries lawfully. In Thailand, the legal definition of a mother is the woman who carried the baby physically. So, in order for the foreign couples to take their children into their care legally, they need to have surrogate mothers give up their rights of children, which could involve the rather complex process in the courts that may force both parties to rely on the illegal methods to solve the issue, such as passport forgeries.
Or even worse, the surrogates could be left behind with their non biological children because the foreign couples could change their minds, which become very convenient for them since the legal status for the mother in that country is the one who carried the baby. This becomes very difficult when the surrogate mother, who possibly came into the business to make money, is forced into further economic burden and moral guilt for using contradictory practice with no paybacks.
Also, this practice is usually happening in the legal gray areas, where there are no laws in preventing the abuse of the practice or helping victims of the practice. The practice of surrogacy could hardly be good, especially for surrogate mothers, when there are no legal controls for it to guarantee effective solutions or preventions for the potential problems.
Surrogacy is not only the moral erosion of humanity, but also the stigma of poverty and inequality for the powerless. Even if there are benefits to the issue, when the other party is forced into potential danger and misery without proper protections, this practice could hardly be the true reproduction of human lives, but the destruction of pre-existing lives.
Hae Rin is a freshman writer for The Daily Cardinal. Do you agree or disagree with her view on surrogacy? Is there a view she may have overlooked? We want to hear your take. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
