Surrogacy is a complex and controversial topic. Despite the fact that it is not prohibited in Russia, they are somehow embarrassed to talk about it, since this reproductive technology raises more questions than it answers. We will tell you about the pros and cons of surrogacy in this article.
What it is?
Surrogacy is an officially recognized assisted reproductive technology that allows couples with total female infertility or complete inability to bear a child to have their own genetically "their" child. Previously, couples in which a woman could not become a mother for medical reasons or because of congenital or acquired anomalies in the development of the organs of the reproductive system (uterus, vagina, ovaries), had only two options - to take a child from an orphanage or live a life without children at all.
Surrogate motherhood, which in fact has been known since the time of Plutarch, but received a "second wind" only in 1980, gives an infertile couple a chance to have a child, related by blood and genes. In addition to married couples, single women with gross pathologies of the uterus or other diagnoses that are absolutely incompatible with pregnancy and childbirth, as well as single men who have “matured” to conscious paternity, become “customers” of surrogate mothers.
Fertilization takes place using the IVF method. Doctors receive a woman's egg, a man's sperm. Fertilization is carried out in the laboratory, after several days of cultivation, the embryos are transferred into the uterus of a surrogate mother - a healthy woman of reproductive age who has undergone the necessary examinations.
It is she who bears and gives birth to a baby (or babies), but they are not her family. After giving birth, the woman undertakes to give the born baby to his biological parents.
For IVF within the framework of the surrogacy program, donor germ cells can also be used - a single man can use oocytes from a cryobank, and a single woman can use donor sperm. However, the surrogate mother herself has neither the legal nor the moral right to give her own eggs for fertilization, because in this case the child will be biologically related to her, and this can complicate the outcome - the surrogate mother will refuse to give the baby to her, will become attached to him.
On the recommendation of the World Health Organization, the term "surrogate mother" has been replaced by "gestational courier". This is more logical and correct, since a newborn's mother can only have one - his biological mother, who will raise and educate him.
It is very difficult to become a gestational courier - the requirements for a woman's health are very high. In addition to being healthy, she must have children of her own. Finding such a woman to bear a child for infertile couples and single Russians and Russian women is also not easy: despite the abundance of reproductive agencies, clinics with their own databases for surrogate mothers, special forums and communities on the Internet, a good, responsible and decent gestational courier is a real find today.
The gestational courier "works" for a fee. The amount of the fee is not regulated by anyone in any way and depends on the agreement of the candidate with the biological parents.
Both those who want to use the services of a gestational courier and those who are thinking about the "career" of a surrogate mother should carefully weigh the pros and cons, pros and cons, as this decision can have serious consequences.
Benefits
Undoubtedly, gestational couriers are necessary and useful: many couples and single men and women get a long-awaited and hard-won chance to become parents. The need to have and raise our own children is inherent in each of us at the genetic level, this is a normal requirement of the civilization process. And sometimes the surrogate mother is really the only way out of the situation.
The Ministry of Health of Russia clearly indicates the indications for such an assisted reproductive technology: this is the absence of the uterus, its malformations, post-traumatic changes, as well as a large list of diseases and conditions in which a woman cannot bear on her own due to the high risk of her own death. Single men do not need testimony.
Today about 17-20% of families in Russia suffer from infertility. Of these, about half require reproductive assistance. According to statistics, about 5-7% of such families cannot cope without a gestational courier.
Previously, with a diagnosis of "futility" and a blue seal across the certificate, a woman would simply be sent home. Today she has a chance. If she decides that surrogacy is quite acceptable for her, she will be able to have a healthy, strong child of her own.
For surrogate mothers themselves, an agreement on the provision of services to an infertile couple is a way to improve their own difficult financial situation. Services on average in Russia cost from 1 to 3 million rubles, and this may be a new apartment if a woman and a child have nowhere to live, or an urgent need to resolve the issue of expensive treatment of one of the relatives. The situations are different. Married women, with the consent of their spouse, also become surrogates, and, believe me, each of them has very good reasons for making such a decision.
You may wonder why society has developed a predominantly negative opinion about surrogacy, because all parties benefit from it. Probably, the dispute between supporters and opponents of this assisted reproductive technology will never end, because both of them give very strong arguments in favor of their opinion. If there was an opportunity to put them on the scales, with a huge degree of probability the scales would remain in equilibrium. therefore the decision to enroll in a surrogate motherhood program is equally difficult for gestational couriers and their "customers".
Disadvantages
Both surrogate mothers and future biological parents face ethical problems even at the decision-making stage. Most often, they are ashamed to admit to relatives and friends that a couple needs the help of a stranger and a stranger. Many biological mothers simulate pregnancy, wear special belly pads so that everyone around, even relatives, could not think at what cost this happiness got - to be a mother.
Bioethics does not allow the attending physician to divulge this secret ever to anyone.... Only three people know about the big secret - husband, wife and woman-gestational courier. However, the human factor cannot be ignored; information leakage should still be feared.
Those who want to become parents need to keep their ears open - there are many scammers on the Internet who take an advance payment and disappear. Also, biological parents can often face the facts of manipulation: a woman, having become pregnant, begins to blackmail her “customers” by making an abortion or starting to smoke and drink alcohol, if her fee is not increased or some other conditions are not met. Sometimes it can happen that a woman refuses to give her baby after giving birth, because she gets used to it for a long nine months.
A woman with health problems and providing fake medical certificates may be caught by biparitors, in which case the baby's health will also be at risk. An irresponsible surrogate mother may refuse or forget to take medications prescribed by a doctor on time, will miss visits to a consultation, and will not adhere to a diet and proper nutrition during pregnancy. In general, the list of possible problems is very long.
The very woman-gestational courier can also become a victim of dishonest "customers". She may not be paid after giving birth, refuse to pay any unexpected expenses related to pregnancy, if they are not specified in the terms of the contract. Spouses who are biological parents can divorce at the moment when a baby is being carried for them, and then the child will become a victim of family squabbles or will be abandoned altogether. The surrogate mother will be faced with the question of what to do with the baby and who will pay her now.
The attitude of the "customers" to the "performer" is not always correct and adequate. It is not uncommon for biological parents who want to control every step of the gestational courier, install CCTV cameras everywhere, including the bath and toilet, and do not allow them to freely leave the house to go somewhere about their personal business. These actions, of course, are justified by fears that the surrogate mother will violate the terms of the contract and harm the baby. Not every couple in this situation can stop in time and understand where the border of reason passes, where their rights end and the freedom of another person begins.
The relationship between the gestational courier and the biological parents should be regulated by an agreement, in which everything should be stipulated to the smallest detail, all situations should be foreseen so that the interests of the two parties are taken into account as much as possible and everyone is satisfied. It is better to entrust such work to specialists - lawyers of agencies that mediate between surrogate mothers and "customers", or lawyers of clinics in which couples are observed. But even a very precise and competent agreement does not guarantee that everything will go smoothly and that there will not be any difficulties and misunderstandings at any stage.
Another controversial point is whether to tell the child, when he grows up, how he was born. Bioethics prohibits this from both doctors and the gestational courier. But information leakage may be, besides, some parents consider it their moral duty to tell the grown-up child this family secret.
Psychologists believe that such a truth can cause problems with self-identification in a person, especially if this person has not yet reached the age of majority or has just barely crossed this age limit.
Moral issues
Obtaining the blessing or approval of the clergy of almost all religions for surrogacy, most likely, will not work. In most beliefs, this reproductive technology is harshly condemned and rejected as immoral. Spouses who want to have a child at any cost violate the basic rule of any faith - with patience and humility to accept what is given by the Almighty.
Orthodoxy believes that spouses who refuse to accept their infertility for granted are already violating the Law of God. However, the attitude of the Church towards IVF is generally more loyal, but only on condition that doctors use the sex cells of the wife and husband to obtain embryos. Donor material, surrogate motherhood are methods that, according to Orthodox priests, violate the great sacrament of Christian marriage, and also completely devalue motherhood, turning it into a commercial deal. In this case, the child becomes an object of purchase and sale, and human life is priceless, this is exactly what the main fundamental principle of the Russian Orthodox Church says.
Admirers fully agree with Orthodox priests Islam. Not a single mullah will give his blessing to the spouses who will communicate their desire to hire a surrogate mother for the birth of offspring. Muslim women who themselves want to become gestational couriers are very rare, since the punishment for such a sin in Islam is significant - the whole family, friends and relatives can turn away from a woman.
Catholicism completely prohibits all reproductive assistive technologies, be it IVF, ICSI, intrauterine insemination or surrogacy.
Judaism we are more tolerant of gestational couriers, however, in Israel they will never carry out an IVF protocol if the surrogate mother is one of the relatives (which is not prohibited in Russia at all). A country in which IVF is fully paid by the state, where any reproductive techniques are supported, severely restricts related "services", because the rabbis consider this to be incest, which is a grave offense.
The most tolerant attitude towards gestational couriers shows only Buddhism, since his admirers believe that the most important thing is for everyone to be happy, and if surrogate motherhood is the only way to achieve this happiness, then why not.
In addition to issues of faith and religion, all participants in the process may face such a phenomenon as an identity crisis. If a female gestational courier decided to participate in the program for the first time, the risks are much higher that it will be very difficult for her to part with the baby she carried under her heart and gave birth. With her mind, she will understand and realize that the baby is completely alien to her, but with her heart she can really love him.
The biological parents of the baby can also experience a mental crisis, since women in such couples are tormented by a feeling of guilt that it was not she who gave birth to the baby, but the other, while husbands in this situation feel somewhat awkward.
Opponents of surrogate motherhood put forward the following arguments: the program itself contradicts the laws of nature, it rapes the souls of all participants, and the consequences can be the most unexpected. Unfortunately, divorce is not uncommon. After the successful completion of the treatment course, discharge with balloons and flowers from the maternity hospital, the biological parents part after a while, because the secret they carry turns out to be too heavy, and the mental burden is too heavy.
Families of gestational couriers, if a woman has a husband, having received the necessary amount of money for the birth of a baby, also in most cases disintegrate. Most men, even if the spouse's participation in the program was confirmed by their consent, still cannot accept in the depths of their hearts the fact that the wife generally agreed to this. Conflicts begin, more and more reproaches follow, as a result - divorce.
Conclusions
If you are faced with a difficult choice - whether to agree to participate in the program, think carefully about whether you are ready for possible risks, as well as changes that will not necessarily have a happy ending. In many ways, the clergy are probably right, who point to such important aspects of human life as voice of conscience. Each of the participants in the surrogacy program will have to answer to themselves first of all.
The inadmissibility of violating the sacrament and intimacy of the union of two is difficult to dispute. Those who have fiercely tried to do so will soon realize how wrong they are. From this point of view, it is easier for a couple, as they are advised in most cases, to take a child from an orphanage, a toddler left without parents, or a baby refusal. The conscience will be light and calm. But the desire to have children of their own is also impossible to dispute.
When making a decision that will definitely change your life, take your time, think, put everything “on the shelves”. And when you decide, act without hesitation. Any decision is only yours.
For more on the psychology of surrogacy, see the next video.
