Is Surrogacy A Necessary Practice?

In sub-Saharan Africa, 15 million children are orphans. In Asia there are even more. While these children are living without a home, couples are paying a lot of money to take part in a practice called surrogacy. Surrogacy is the practice of using a surrogate (or substitute) mother to have a child for a couple in which the female is infertile. Is surrogacy a necessary practice?

In India, surrogacy is “becoming a regular profession” according to a recently published article. While there are other solutions for a country that is in need of jobs, the amount of money that this job produces attracts many women to use it as their career. These surrogate mothers could be harming their relationships with their husbands and their reputations. Despite the lack of jobs in India, is surrogacy necessary still? Could they not find another job in the areas of sewing or arts that will not dampen their reputation, harm their marriages, and spend their life in the discomfort of constantly having children that are not theirs to own?

Although surrogacy is not outlawed in many places, many legal issues are presented in the practice. Surrogate mothers are legally the birthing mother of the child. Due to this, surrogate mothers do not have to give the child that they birthed back to the couple they are working to please. In a similar way, because the infertile mother did not birth the child, she and her husband can decide that they do not want the child that they did not have. Fetal abnormality is also a possibility that is not expected. What happens when neither party wants to keep the abnormal child or the surrogate mother decides to end the pregnancy?

Surrogacy has a price. In Western countries, surrogacy can cost around 10,000. In India, surrogate mothers cost £2,500 plus medical and attendants cost. In the end, that would equal about half of western countries’ prices. Nonetheless, it is still expensive. More than that, the couple does not know who the surrogate mother is when they look for one overseas. The price that could be paid here could be legal issues. When legal issues are taken to court, the price could be a lot more than the couple was originally expecting.

Surrogacy is a practice usually used by infertile women who long for children. With the practice becoming more common, it is feared that women that do not want to put their careers on hold will resort to it. More than this, millions of children worldwide are orphans waiting for parents. Number of orphans in the world, price of the practice, and legal issues are the reasons why surrogacy is unnecessary. Are we going to let this practice happen any longer?