Wombs for rent

(David) This article in the New York Times on Indian women renting their wombs as surrogate mothers is a window into the biological/sociological world of tomorrow. For $25,000, homosexual lovers from Israel buy an egg from an Indian woman, have it inseminated and surgically placed in an Indian woman's womb. She carries the baby to term--the child is never conceived from a surrogate mother's own egg lest she grow attached to it--gives birth, and immediately gives the baby over to the rent paying "parents." Homosexual couples from Israel are doing this--and also soccer moms from Orange County, who've learned that a surrogate mother can be hired in India for one-third the cost of an American surrogate. Slavery has many forms, and this is slavery on every side.

Comments

[Kamilla]

But Tim,

Shouldn't we trust these "well-meaning" doctors working in this utterly unregulated industry? I mean, we know these couples "need" to have these children of their own blood (well, sort of anyway) and all these wonderful doctors are doing is helping these couples be happy.

I think I'm going to be ill.

Kamilla

[al]

It is amazing what poverty, coupled with a low view of family and life, can do to people. I am sure that this will expand both in India and in some of the poorer countries closer to home.

al sends

[Bike Bubba]

I don't know if I'm proud or ashamed to have thought it, but my first thought upon reading the one on Israeli homosexuals hiring surrogate mothers is "is it kosher?".

That would be the very definition, I think, of straining a gnat but swallowing a camel, no?

I'm pretty sure it's not, BTW; Orthodox women refuse wigs made from Indian hair because it's likely to have come from idolaters.

[Donna L. Carlaw]

I think that this "rent a womb" practice is a lot more degrading to all involved than is the case of women who hire servants so that the newly- empowered may follow after equality, as in the case of Hillary and co.

Maybe it is a toss up, though?

How far will God allow this sort of thing to go? We need to re-read Christopher Marlowe's Tragical History..., I believe.

[RBerman]

I'm not defending this practice, but the stories of Abraham and Jacob remind us that it's nothing new for men and women to go to shocking lengths to acquire an heir.

[Stacy McDonald]

I wonder if these couples have considered the possible risks involved. I'm not sure what the legal arrangements are, but the "host" woman has quite an advantage. How much responsibility (for the life of their child) would the bio couple accept if there was a disagreement over the fee (or anything else) and the hired woman, in retaliation, aborted the couple's baby? And would abortion finally be considered murder in the courts?

[Ross]

I'm not defending this practice, but the stories of Abraham and Jacob remind us that it's nothing new for men and women to go to shocking lengths to acquire an heir

Which begs the question: we believe that children are the heritage of the Lord, but how far is too far? IVF has already been raised as a possible 'too far'.

[Tim Bayly]

Dear Brother Ross,

IVF that discards the surplus human beings that have been created, "little ones kept in the fridge" as Jerome LeJeune put it, is not "a possible too far."

It's murder plain and simple.

[Ross]

Yeah, but I was asking a wider question than just IVF.

A thought I have had is that 'surplus' embryos could be given to couples otherwise unable to conceive, implanted and carried to term that way. This, of course, is analogous to adoption. The point is that I think we need a wider debate as to what is OK, as well as what isn't, and it's not clear to me that we've had that. Hence my question.