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Loading...Parents Push Surrogate To Abort Fetus Because of Birth Defect
Here’s a case that pushes all kinds of ethical boundaries: a Canadian couple who discovered that their fetus was likely to have Down’s Syndrome decided that they wanted to have an abortion. The practice of aborting fetuses because of birth defects is controversial enough, but to make matters even knottier, the fetus was being carried by a surrogate, who wanted to carry the pregnancy to term.
Under the agreement signed by the couple and the surrogate, this would mean that the parents were not legally responsible for raising the child. But the situation sparked a new debate over the potential need for government intervention and oversight in contracts between parents and the women who carry their children. Many ethicists feel strongly that the surrogate-parent relationship is too delicate to have contract law applied to it, saying that in such cases, the child becomes a product rather than a person.
Bioethicist Juliet Guichon explained, “Should the rules of commerce apply to the creation of children? No, because children get hurt. It’s kind of like stopping the production line: ‘Oh, oh, there’s a flaw.’ It makes sense in a production scenario, but in reproduction it’s a lot more problematic.”
The separate issues of IVF/surrogacy and selective abortion are the subjects of hot debate, but this is the first time that I’ve seen them intersect. In the end, the surrogate decided to have an abortion anyway, but this is an ethical dilemma that courts and legislators need to address, and one that parents and surrogates need to be aware of when they create childbearing contracts.
The problem is that although parents have the right to decide whether they want to raise a child with birth defects (and I would argue, have the right to abort the fetus when they are carrying their own child), the surrogate’s presence adds the complication of another adult who should be given input over what happens to her body. If the parents feel that they can’t raise the child, they should not be compelled to do so simply because they were having the child with the help of a surrogate – that would, ultimately, be cruel to both the parents and the child.
But if the surrogate is opposed to abortion for any reason, she should not be compelled to have one. The question is whether the surrogate is then compelled to raise the child herself, and what rights the parents have. What if the surrogate wants to give the baby up for adoption? Are the parents obligated to help her do so – and if not, are they obligated to give her monetary support?
These are clearly tough questions, ones that don’t have easy answers. They’re also not questions that most parents, even couples who use a surrogate, will have to answer. But the fact that a case like this has surfaced reinforces the fact that in situations where pregnancy becomes a legal contract, parents and surrogates need to explore all possible outcomes before they begin. If the parents are pro-choice and the surrogate is not, that’s something that they need to address before the surrogate becomes pregnant. This is, arguably, a reason for greater government oversight, simply because most parents and surrogates don’t imagine that something like this could happen.
Read more: abortion, birth defects, downs syndrome, health policy, ivf, pregnancy contracts, selective abortion, surrogacy
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154 comments
+ add your ownsurrogate could fight to keep it, if they don't want it.
sounds like those parents don't deserve to be parents, if they must have a 'perfect' child.....maybe Mother Nature knew best when she made them infertile. People who abort babies with disabilities just make me sick...they are almost as selfish and arrogant as the people who abort a child cause it is the 'wrong sex.'
If you're going to have a baby using a surrogate, have everything spelled out in a legal contract before implanting the embryo. It's basically an employer-employee relationship - you are paying someone else to provide you with a service - to do something for you that you cannot do for yourself.
Are the prospective parents required to pay the surrogate in full if she miscarries? To what extent are they allowed to dictate her private life - is the contract voided if she drinks a beer, smokes a cigar, or has sex with someone while pregnant? If the fetus is found to be defective, can the prospective parents insist on an abortion, and if an abortion is performed, are they required to pay the surrogate in full? If an abortion is performed or a miscarriage occurs, is the surrogate obligated to be implanted again - does she owe them a do-over? If the surogate refuses to abort but does not wish to raise a child herself, does she have the option of placing the baby for adoption after it is born?
People who plan to pay for a surrogate will simply have to shop around until they find one who is willing to do things on their terms.
Joe K, why would any compassionate person want children born with medical problems rather than being born without those problems?
I profoundly hope that the science of genetics will one day allow us to correct faulty genes in parents which result in children being born with painful and debilitating conditions.
"Different" does not equal "good". Some "differences" are heartbreakingly bad. Had my grandparents' recessive gene for Alpha One Anti-Trypsin Deficiency been corrected, my mother and her sister wouldn't have suffered intolerably for so long and died of that condition. And my nieces and nephews wouldn't be at risk for the same condition.
While we'll likely never have a world in which all children are born healthy, that's definitely something we should be striving for.
And as for genetic engineering possibly being able to increase intelligence in children - again, that's something to be desired. Intelligence is a positive trait and we definitely need more of it in this world.
And the only way the human race could end up exclusively 'white' would be by killing off all the non-white population (rather difficult to do since non-whites substantially outnumber whites worldwide). Since I rather doubt that we're going to find a way to have, say, black parents churning out white children - or that those parents would want to churn out white children in the first place.
I realize that I am late to this, but I find it amazing that 42% of responders are either fully in favor, or leaning towards the proposition that the surrogate mother should be COMPELLED to abort the fetus.
Totally separate from the question of pro-life vs. pro-choice is the question of selective abortion in the face of any disability. The proper term for this is eugenics. Improving the breed through either selective breeding or "culling the losers".
What a sad state of affairs, that in a world where we supposedly love all people, that we so easily accept destroying all that are "different".
The marriage of genetics to reproductive engineering will soon allow us to select for multiple characteristics in our offspring. And it looks like no one will object when humanity becomes a mass of super intelligent white people that are extremely tall, have lots of (blond) hair, and oversize genitalia. We will have fulfilled Hitler's and Goebbel's dream-all in the name of "choice" and "free will".
Donna, you state that the test was 'not accurate' because your friend's child wasn't born with Down's. But the test never revealed that the child would definitely be born with Down's - as you yourself stated it was a likelihood, not a certainty. Therefore it wasn't 'inaccurate' - it was a possibility that luckily never happened.
I have a friend whose tests showed that her child was likely to have Downs. It was hard for her and her husband to accept, but they did with full heart. The child was not born with Downs Syndrome at all and this goes to show the tests are not accurate.
I have a hard time with this whole 'refunding' of human beings. If you choose to give life, you should be choosing to love unconditionally all around, and you must do so with courage--that's what true love is.
If you want to be picky about who you raise and are concerned about your lifestyle, then adopt!
I don't think they should be able to force the surrogate to have an abortion, but they certainly should not have to take the child when it is born. If they tell the surrogate they do not want the child and will not adopt it, but the surrogate chooses to have it, she should have to take responsibility for it, not dump it on the state.
Kenneth - The parents of the fetus don't have a say in what happens to the surrogates body. The surrogate was doing them a favor!
I sure hope they did an amnio before aborting this child. They story said "that their fetus was likely to have Down's Syndrome " That's not a definite, and the only way to find out is through Amnio. Hopefully they took all the necessary steps. I personally don't think that the couple in question should request anymore surrogates, because if they have all these rules about what they can and can't handle with regard to a child, and they're already succeptible to a child with defects, don't bring in any more third parties.
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