Regretting Surrogacy

Jennifer Lahl was recently interviewed by ABC News about women who regret being surrogate mothers. A surrogacy agreement is when a woman agrees to carry and give birth to a child for someone else. In some cases, the pregnancy occurs through in vitro fertilization so that the baby is genetically unrelated to the woman who carries the child. In other cases, the woman who carries the child becomes pregnant naturally or artificially so that the child is genetically related to the woman who carries the baby. Usually, a woman agrees to receive a sum of money in exchange for being a surrogate.

Obviously, there is a great deal of moral confusion that results when sex is severed from its natural connection to childbirth. In fact, one of the doctors in the video above cavalierly dismisses the importance of the biological connections between parents and children, saying that becoming a parent is more than biology. I guess that observation seems like common sense to this particular physician. The actual surrogates in this report experience that severing as anything but common sense. One woman in the video says that she regretted her surrogate arrangement the minute she laid eyes on the baby. At that moment, she viewed the child as hers, yet she had to give her own child away because of the monetary agreement she had entered into.

Watch the report above. Also, watch the trailer to Lahl’s documentary below. It might possibly transform your views on surrogacy.