Surrogacy at Its Best?

I came across this story on the web this AM.   It seems to me to illustrate surrogacy at its finest.   Because I’ve gone at length about surrogacy at a number of different times  in the past, and because I am deeply skeptical of much about surrogacy, I thought it might be worth lingering here for a few moments. 

Jamie Underwood Collins is 8 1/2 months pregnant with a baby that is intended for a New York couple.    She’s married and has four kids of her own.   While she’s being paid something around $25,000 it doesn’t seem that the need for money was her primary motivation.   Rather, this was something Collins wanted to do for someone.   There’s nothing shameful about being a surrogate, at least as Collins sees it.   (She wears a T-shirt that says “This is not my husband’s baby” on the front and “But it’s not mine either.  I’m a proud surrogate” on the back.  

The Wrong Embryo and Language

Just a quick coda to the recent case popularly referred to as “the wrong embryo case.”  (And yes, I’ve used that terminology, too.)  Thursday Carolyn Savage gave birth to a baby boy and the boy will be raises by the Morells, who are genetically related to him.

What’s most notable to me is the language the Morell’s used to describe Carolyn Savage.  In earlier discussions here I and some commenters touched on whether she would be considered a surrogate.   But the Morell’s chose to call her a “guardian angel” and the headline writer shortened that to “guardian.” 

A long time ago on this blog I struggled with word choice in various surrogacy situations.   Nothing like “guardian” ever crossed my mind. 

It’s an interesting choice.   I think, at least in this context, to be called a guardian is to given a certain amount of honor.   It’s a more favorable term than “surrogate.”  There is a way in which, particularly under these circumstances, it seems appropriate.   But there is a tinge of something there that makes me a trifle uneasy.  (Is it from the Handmaid’s Tale?)      

I wonder if the term has a future outside of this one instance?

The Wrong Embryo: Variations on a Theme

I want to continue the wrong-embryo thread a bit longer, but before I do I want to make it clear that I am now fully in the realm of the hypothetical.   The discussion here takes off from the earlier posts, but I’m now changing facts freely just to make myself good questions. 

In the real world, the Carolyn Savage ended up pregnant after an embryo that belonged to someone else was transferred into her uterus.   Now we’ve assumed that the embryo was actually created with the other couples sperm and egg.  But suppose that is not the case.   Suppose the other couple had purchased one of the elements (let’s start with sperm) and then used it to create the embryos that were frozen. 

The Wrong Embryo, II: An Afterthought

This picks up from yesterday’s post–read that first.  

Consider the position of the hospital when Carolyn Savage gives birth.   The hospital is obliged to prepare a certificate of live birth.   Suppose there is a blank for “mother” on the birth certificate.  What name should go in that blank?    

I am fairly sure that the ordinary practice is to fill in the name of the woman who just gave birth.   If  the Savages want to put some other name on the certificate (like the name of the woman whose egg was used and who will parent the child), should the hospital let them do that?   Should it require them to produce some sort of document instructing it (the hospital) to do so or should it just take any name they offered?   

The Wrong Embryo, II

I just sat down to write this entry, inspired by this morning’s Today Show and lo, I found I had already used my title.  Six months ago I wrote about another wrong embryo case, but I guess I’d forgotten.   Just goes to show that, as I said in that earlier post, accidents will happen.  

Anyway, here is the story from this AM:  Carolyn and Sean Savage had used IVF to conceive their third child.  They had left-over embryos which were frozen.   They decided they wanted to try to have a fourth child and so went to have the embryos thawed and transferred. 

A pregnancy resulted.   But it turned out the clinic had used the wrong embryos–embryos that had been prepared and stored for some other couple.   Somehow this came to light quite quickly (though obviously not quickly enough) and so the news of the error arrived along with the news that Carolyn was pregnant.   

Regulating Adoption/ART, II: For Example

This really picks right up on yesterday’s post, so you’ll want to read that first I should think.   I want to offer an example on the theory that this will help me (and perhaps readers, too) evaluate the point I’m trying to make. 

Imagine X, a very wealthy and eccentric single man who wants a child.    (Yes, I’ve been thinking about Michael Jackson and his children yet again.  I know it’s all quite sensationalized, but this item  about the third child, Blanket(?), caught my attention.)   It seems to me he might have two options.  

Plan A:  X tries to adopt a child.   As far as I know, no matter what state the person chose, this would involve some sort of home study that included evaluating  X’s fitness as a parent.   If X were sufficiently eccentric, this could be a problem.  

Paying for a Child

There’s a not so very recent story from Alternet that I’ve been meaning to comment on for some time.  I’ve been waiting until my thoughts were properly collected, but I’m beginning to think that will take too long, so I figured I’d just start thinking out loud, as it were. 

The story is really worth a read.   It starts me down two different trains of thought.  One is really about surrogacy and that whole set of questions.  I’ve said quite a lot about all that before (just look at the tags–altrusitic surrogacy, gestational surrogacy, plain surrogacy, and so on.)  I should revisit all that to see if I’d still say the same thing, but I won’t do that just now. 

Instead, this story set me thinking about a different and broader topic:   what can/should/do people pay to have a child.   There’s at least two different ways in which one could expand this question.  

I take it as a given that children are not to be bought/sold, but you could quibble with this assumption if you chose to.  Given that point, you could think about all the different things that might count for some as buying a child.  

The Implications of the Oregon Lesbian Mother Decision

Last week I posted  a couple of times about a recent Oregon case that opens some new avenues for lesbian mothers seeking legal recognition of their parental status.   While you might wish to go back and look at those posts, the idea, in a nutshell, is this:   If two women agree to engage in assisted insemination with the idea that they will raise a child together, then when they do that and the child is born, they are both legal parents of that child. 

There are two different ways in which you could reach this result.  One is that employed by the Oregon court:  A heterosexual married couple would be entitled to this treatment.  There is no basis for treating an unmarried lesbian couple differently in this regard, and therefore the lesbian couple is entitled to the same legal recognition. 

The thing about this rationale is that it starts from an already existing law that treats a heterosexual couple in a particular way.   That’s all well and good–it is really a fine way for a court to support it’s result.   But I want to consider the second way to justify the result, which is to say that this is the way the law should be for all people, be they married or unmarried, heterosexual or not. 

Michael Jackson’s Children and Their Parents

A little while back I allowed as how I would eventually get around to saying something about Michael Jackson and his children.   It’s a quiet Saturday, so this is it.

I have not kept up on the entire Michael Jackson saga, but here are the things I think I know.  (I trust someone will correct me if I have major points wrong.)   Jackson died, obviously.  At least one will has surfaced that leaves the bulk of his estate to his children.  

 Jackson was apparently legally the parent of three children:  12 year old Michael Jackson Jr, 11 year old Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, and 7 year old Prince Michael Jackson, II.   While no one seems to have raised any questions about this, I’m a bit curious about how he got to been recognized as such in all three cases.   

I’ve read several places (sorry not to have a link) that Jackson was not genetically related to any of the children.   

Surrogacy (Again) in the NYT–Talking to the Children

Once again there is a story in the NYT about surrogacy.   This one is about how people who have used surrogacy talk to their children about the children’s conception and birth.    There’s many things I’d like to say about this one, though if I’m not sure they will all fit together into some grand point. 

First off, the story includes some statistics I find astonishing.   It reports that according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine–the relevant medical special organization–there were between 400 and 600 birth a year resulting from gestational surrogacy.  (This is surrogacy where the woman who gives birth is not genetically related to the child.  Instead, the egg comes either from one of the intending parents or a donor.)   Now that is a tiny number.     If you poke around the web or this blog you can find some data on the number of live births in the US per year.  From this study it looks to me to be around 4 million births per year.  

Now these numbers are disputed even within the article and I will accept that they are low.   (I will note, though, that I am a bit skeptical of the statistics reported by someone whose income is dependent on the business of promoting surrogacy arrangements.   They might have an interest in erring on the high side.)