Surrogate motherhood

[Dr_Paul]

I am looking for some excellent resources to help a couple I know who are considering using a surrogate to carry their child. As background, the biological mother is unable to carry a pregnancy due to a congenital heart defect. They have identified a surrogate who is a friend of the mother’s sister. The father is well educated and I have already shared with him what is found in the catechism, Donum vitae and Dignitas personae. In my discussions with him, I have tried to convey how this fits into the larger context of John Paul’s teaching on the Theology of the Body. I have also discussed potential alternatives such as adoption. I do believe that he understands that the Church teaches that in vitro fertilization and using a surrogate are wrong, but he is still very conflicted. He is not convinced in seeing the reasons why the Church teaches this and he is having difficulty in discussing the moral problems with his wife.

Any suggestions on helpful articles, books, or audio tapes that present the Church’s teaching in a simple and compassionate way would be very much appreciated. I also ask for your prayers for this couple as they carry this difficult cross in their lives.

 

[momor]

I don’t have an article just a suggestion. Why not talk to your friend about why it is so important to them to have a biological child (with all of the attendant financial and legal complications) vs a child via adoption. If he is willing to really explore his reasons he might come to a different conclusion.

 

[Lutheranteach]

It’s not a situation I would become a part of without a very direct invitation. The absolute emotional turmoil and pain caused by infertility is almost beyond explanation (personal experience). Tread very very lightly.

 

[Apollos]

I am looking for some excellent resources to help a couple I know who are considering using a surrogate to carry their child.

Beyond what you mentioned, there is the CDF’s instruction: vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

You know, with all the strides that have been made in women’s reproductive rights in the last 40 years, I never thought I’d see the day when women would go back to being baby factories … by choice.

Talk about letting someone use you.

 

[OraLabora]

It’s not a situation I would become a part of without a very direct invitation. The absolute emotional turmoil and pain caused by infertility is almost beyond explanation (personal experience). Tread very very lightly.

You’re point is very well taken and I also wonder what would possess someone to get involved with what is really in fact a very private matter?

If someone was deeply conflicted over this and shared that with me, I would simply recommend that the person get spiritual direction.

Even with a direct invitation I would be loath to get involved and would say that I feel out my depth and would prefer if he talk with a priest and a doctor.

 

[Dr_Paul]

I agree that this is a very emotional subject and I can never really appreciate the pain that goes along with not being able to have children since I have been blessed with five. The individual who shared with me his intention to use a surrogate womb is my brother…and I am myself a doctor. That is what has possessed me to get involved with this “very private matter”.

 

[vera_dicere]

Maybe you could, as I’m loath to phrase it as such, “fear monger” them out of it. There are so many cases of “good friends” and even family members being surrogates and then when baby is born they won’t give up the child, and the law in most places classes the woman who bears the child as mother. So they run the risk of another raising their biological child and having full legal rights pretaining to such.

Is your brother and his wife devout practising Catholics? Or are they really saddened by this situation that they are going down this road?

I’m guessing they have investigated fully the extent of the heart defect and whether it woudl be possible to carry to a stage of viabilty?

But honestly, I think prayer is the best bet.

 

[constantseeker]

Maybe you could, as I’m loath to phrase it as such, “fear monger” them out of it. There are so many cases of “good friends” and even family members being surrogates and then when baby is born they won’t give up the child, and the law in most places classes the woman who bears the child as mother. So they run the risk of another raising their biological child and having full legal rights pretaining to such.

Is your brother and his wife devout practising Catholics? Or are they really saddened by this situation that they are going down this road?

I’m guessing they have investigated fully the extent of the heart defect and whether it woudl be possible to carry to a stage of viabilty?

But honestly, I think prayer is the best bet.

I don’t think scaring someone is the best way to counsel them in this matter.

 

[OraLabora]

I agree that this is a very emotional subject and I can never really appreciate the pain that goes along with not being able to have children since I have been blessed with five. The individual who shared with me his intention to use a surrogate womb is my brother…and I am myself a doctor. That is what has possessed me to get involved with this “very private matter”.

I wondered when I saw your username, after I posted, if it wasn’t related to a patient of yours.

Given your circumstances, I can then understand why you would be involved (assuming your brother wants you to be).

This is what I say to my (now young adult) children when they don’t ask for advice but I feel like giving it anyway: “my advice is free and given in love, you’re free to take it and follow it or ignore it”. It probably also applies when advice is asked for. Ultimately, you’re brother will have to weigh the advice with all other advice, and he and his wife’s emotional strength in the face of this difficulty, and make his own or rathe their (he and wife) own decision.

 

[Dr_Paul]

Is your brother and his wife devout practising Catholics? Or are they really saddened by this situation that they are going down this road?

My brother has a great love for our Catholic faith. This is probably why he is very much in turmoil in trying to reconcile his (and his wife’s) intense desire to have a biological child, his recognition that the Church teaches that in vitro fertilization and surrogacy are morally wrong, and his very honest inability to believe what the church teaches or to understand WHY it teaches this. Although Donum vitae does provide an explanation, my brother cannot accept the reasoning. His justification for not following the Church’s teaching on this focuses on the good and noble end envisioned while downplaying the means to be used. He cannot see why surrogacy violates the combined unitive and procreative components that are necessary in the generation of new human life. While this seems obvious to me, I am fairly sure that his emotions are clouding his reasoning.

In many ways, I can see the difficulty that he is having from my experience at the other side of this issue (i.e. contraception). I made similar arguments before I first accepted and then warmly embraced the Church’s teaching. There are numerous excellent books, articles, and tapes that clearly and convincingly explain why contraception is wrong in separating the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital union. I was hoping that there were at least some resources available on the other side of the coin (i.e artificial reproductive technologies).

But honestly, I think prayer is the best bet.

Amen

 

[StAnastasia]

It’s not a situation I would become a part of without a very direct invitation. The absolute emotional turmoil and pain caused by infertility is almost beyond explanation (personal experience). Tread very very lightly.

True, and as long as the embryo is the product of the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg, I think surrogacy is a loving option. It’s certainly self-sacrifice on the part of the surrogate.

 

[momor]

True, and as long as the embryo is the product of the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg, I think surrogacy is a loving option. It’s certainly self-sacrifice on the part of the surrogate.

Are you aware this is not the view of the Church?

Surrogates are not necessarily self-sacrificing. Many do it strictly for the money. Please don’t romanticize it.

 

[StAnastasia]

Surrogates are not necessarily self-sacrificing. Many do it strictly for the money. Please don’t romanticize it.

I’m not romanticizing anything. I’m thinking of a case I know, in which one of two female twins had been born without a uterus. Her twin already had her own children, and lovingly volunteered to carry her sister’s twin embryos that had been conceived with the sperm of the sister’s husband. The result was two babies being born to the childless couple, that were their own biological children brought to term by their aunt. They are a happy, vibrant, church-going family.

StAnastasia

 

[Apollos]

They are a happy, vibrant, church-going family.

If they turned out to be a bunch of morose, sluggish apostates, would that suddenly make it obvious that this is a violation of natural law and of the dignity of the human person?

 

[StAnastasia]

If they turned out to be a bunch of morose, sluggish apostates, would that suddenly make it obvious that this is a violation of natural law and of the dignity of the human person?

Not at all.

 

[StAnastasia]

If they turned out to be a bunch of morose, sluggish apostates, would that suddenly make it obvious that this is a violation of natural law and of the dignity of the human person?

How is bringing a human person into existence a violation of the human person?

 

[Apollos]

How is bringing a human person into existence a violation of the human person?

Children have a right to be born of and raised by their own parents whom they know to be such, and to come into existence as a result of an act of radical self-donation between husband and wife that imitates the generation within the holy trinity and the love of Christ for the Church in cooperation with God’s creative activity in the universe, because of the human person’s intrinsic dignity as image of God.

The children born in the case you described (Today 4:10 pm) arose in vitro from the results of an egg harvest from the mother and the father’s masturbation, in a procedure during which their fraternal siblings perished in a planned culling, and they were the lucky two to be placed in an environment in which they could survive past the initial stages of development that was deliberately chosen because it wasn’t their own mother, a choice motivated by the fact that the mother lacked a uterus but justified on the basis that the ends justify the means.

 

[StAnastasia]

Children have a right to be born of and raised by their own parents whom they know to be such, and to come into existence as a result of an act of radical self-donation between husband and wife that imitates the generation within the holy trinity and the love of Christ for the Church in cooperation with God’s creative activity in the universe, because of the human person’s intrinsic dignity as image of God.

Your evidence for this claimed “right”?

The children born in the case you described (Today 4:10 pm) arose in vitro from the results of an egg harvest from the mother

Yes, two eggs,

and the father’s masturbation

Not necessarily – could be extracted by needle.

in a procedure during which their fraternal siblings perished in a planned culling,

Not necessarily.

and they were the lucky two to be placed in an environment in which they could survive past the initial stages of development that was deliberately chosen because it wasn’t their own mother

No, it wasn’t deliberately chosen because it wasn’t their own mother; the mother would happily have carried her children herself.

a choice motivated by the fact that the mother lacked a uterus

And that she had a calling to motherhood.

but justified on the basis that the ends justify the means.

Indeed.

 

[Apollos]

Your evidence for this claimed “right”?

Seriously? You want me to get out some scientific equipment and chemicals to do an experiment on someone to see if he has a “right”?

Not necessarily … Not necessarily.

Brush up on your science.

And that she had a calling to motherhood.

And I suppose you have evidence for a “calling”, or else you wouldn’t have demanded evidence for a “right”.

 

[StAnastasia]

Seriously? You want me to get out some scientific equipment and chemicals to do an experiment on someone to see if he has a “right”?

Chemicals are not needed. Coherent argumentation is needed!

Brush up on your science.