Yes, what is the real impact of treating women like easy-bake ovens? …So asks our very own Elizabeth Marquardt along with award-winning documentary filmmaker Jennifer Lahl in their latest co-written Huffington Post piece.
Marquardt and Lahl react to the recent case in Texas where a woman gave birth to twins using an egg donor, with the intention of raising and co-parenting them with her then-friend Marvin McMurray, but after the twins were born McMurray sent a court order restricting her access to the babies because he claimed she was “just a surrogate”. The hospital then sent the newborns home with McMurray’s gay lover, Phong Nguyen- a man the woman had never met before.
This case is startling for many reasons.
- Like the title suggests, women are now being treated and thought of as easy-bake ovens.
- It threatens the whole idea of natural parentage and the sacredness of biology. The State now gets to decide who a child’s parent is.
In addition to the identity issues such complex forms of parentage force upon the children, egg donation is a risky business, luring mostly college-aged women into rounds of hormone shots and surgical extractions that are a documented risk to their own health.
I remember when I gave birth to my daughter. Healthy in every way and at age 25 it was an easy pregnancy, but besides everything I had going for me physically something went wrong during labor. After 14 hours of tough contractions, and 4.5 hours of hard pushing (when its normally 40-60 min.) the baby wouldn’t come out. She was traverse. We had to do an emergency c-section. On the emergency room table I felt for the first time in my life like I could die. I had lost so much blood my body was convulsing uncontrollably. I was so fatigued I could barely mutter any words to the doctors. The medication they gave me left me numb from the neck down- which is a terrifying feeling if you’ve ever endured it. When they cut me and pulled my baby out I didn’t have the energy to even blink. They gave her to Rickard and he watched them as they held my guts up above my body, carefully putting each organ back in the right place after having dismantled me. The recovery was long and excruciatingly painful- even with meds. Nothing I’ve ever experienced has been so painful. The only experience that could compare is when I… sold my eggs.
It really made me understand that pregnancy is a big deal.
I can’t help but think of Never Let Me Go- a film (and book) about a group of people who are housed in dormitories, and kept healthy as to complete their life purpose of donating their organs to sick, rich people.
Because that is what many women have become- biological entities to harvest.
But I guess a nicer way to put it would be, we’re just “easy bake ovens with no legal rights to the cupcakes”.
Categories: General
Excuse me! Elizabeth you ignored my last question to you on your last post and I’ll be louder and more angry than ever at this article you and Jennifer wrote. Whose side are you on anyway? What is your agenda? I thought you cared about the children getting shafted out of relationships with their parents from gamete donation. Where the heck are you coming from to call this incubator a loving mother? Torn away from their loving mother that is what you said. She is not their mother. The child is with his or her father and father’s friend which is a hell of a lot better than just being with some woman who carried the baby especially if that friend is going to have to adopt the child rather than automatically get named on the birth record as a parent. A million times more ethical than naming her mother would be naming the father’s partner adoptive father. Unless she is prepared to adopt the child she has no business on that child’s birth record. I know what the law is and the law is wrong! It makes the childs birth record useless for medical purposes and permanently connects the child to people that are not relatives as if they were their relatives. At least with adoption it does not falsify the original birth record and there is a small measure of respect paid to the individuals actual identity. Naming the woman who gestates the child as mother forces the child to have no record of their actual identity as the child of an unknown woman. At least being the child of an estranged parent is the truth. Not a lie. I thought you were against donor conceptions Elizabeth and Jennifer. What is this about then if you don’t care about the child living an authentic existence?
It is not acceptable to just name any old person as mother or father just because the mother and father ditch out. List them as being unknown but don’t lie and say someone else is the mother just because she carried and delivered the baby. Elizabeth you have still not answered my request to put up or shut it support your stance that gestational carriers are biological mothers by proving they have some biological relationship to the born individual. You can’t. Women don’t become mothers until their children are born and then if they are biologically related they have the right to refer to themselves as biological mothers. The ASRM calls the gestational carriers birth mothers of record meaning everyone will think they are the mother even though they are not and it will be recorded that way – they are getting away with a big lie.
I’m really expecting something more from you if you go campaigning against donor conception how can you act like she is the loving mother that is what you called her. Hell yes she is an easy bake oven that is what she let herself be when she signed up to carry another woman’s baby. Is it ethical to ask women to carry other women’s pregnancies? We can talk about that but first I think you owe your supporters of which I have been an avid one – an explaination for this because it looks like you don’t want the kid to live with its Gay dad and lover. That would be bad of you. It would be bad of you to pick the unrelated lady and say she gets to lie and screw the kids life up over living with the dad and dad’s partner who is not going to be listed as a parent on the birth record. What Dad should be doing is working cooperatively with the real mother and sharing custody with her. She should have to give her kid up for adoption before is partner is allowed to adopt. I think the absent parent can’t consent so they should not let any adoption through when one parent is MIA. I’ve reunited too many war vets with their kids who did not consent to their kids adoption – they were just away fighting for our freedom while their dumbbtch girlfriend was marrying some guy and suckering him into paternity fraud or conspiring to kidnap his kid for 37 years.
Either you care about the bio family and the kid or you don’t and wanting the gestational carrier to be named mother is the opposite of everything you say you stand for Elizabeth. Are you ever going to answer me? I put so much heart and energy into helping get back what kids like the one in your article lost. I thought you cared about that stuff too I though Jennifer did too. She did 2 movies on it how can you guys call this broad a loving mother? She bought her motherhood for crying out loud!
I can be very naive and gullible when I believe someone’s intentions are altruistic I really put my heart into backing what they say and what they do. I need to understand how these thoughts could be written by someone I’ve come to admire for helping people I care about that are my personal friends now. If the motive is not to help donor offspring but to do something else….like the something else proposed in this article how can it not look like pepole that are donor offspring are getting used again? I don’t know why I bother to care about this. It does not effect me directly I could live my entire life just fine while this goes on and I could think its nice that these kids are so wanted. But I am a person and I see people that are denied their truth to serve someone else’s purpose and its wrong. Its wrong and there is never a right reason to do that to someone. Not this kid not any kid. If this kid’s mother is absent make her step forward that is where the justice for this kid is and if that cannot happen let the woman that gave birth apply to be the child’s adoptive mother.
We can’t fix the injustice of parental abandonment with lying about it. We can’t fix it by denying its occurring and labeling their parents donors. It does not change the injustice that occurred or make the best of a bad situation what it does is validate the idea that some humans are commodities to be bought and sold. Only the truth makes this child not a commodity. The truth would leave the bio mother not as selling her child but as abandoning her child and the father is either an accessory to the crime of abandonment or he is an innocent bystander dealing with the fall out of that crime. The moment the crime operates to the advantage of the child’s care givers whether it is the father or gestational carrier or father’s partner is the moment the child becomes property of these people born in service to these people. Its so clear and it hurts me so much to see this. To know that there are people like this kid who might not be born free during my lifetime. It’s just not something I’m comfortable turning a blind eye to it is not a lifestyle choice its not a way to build a family its a way to destroy one.
Hi Marilyn, as I’ve said before, I believe children born of an egg “donor” and a “surrogate” have two biological mothers.
No surrogacy agreement has been produced and Cindy Close says she never signed anything or agreed to be a surrogate. She wants the babies who grew in her body. She says she intended to raise them with a co-parent.
In an earlier blog post I also told Cindy close to tell her children the truth about the egg donor.
I also think its a bad idea for unmarried and not even romantically involved people to plan to “co-parent” an as yet unconceived child, as I wrote about such arrangements in my report One parent or five.
But for now, a loving birth mother gave birth and her children were taken from her against her will. That is chilling.
I wonder how everyone would feel about this if the genetic mother wanted to play a roll also – since there were no contracts or formal agreements prior to this project, could she claim “rights” as well. And if she could, whose “rights” would the law say was more valued? The genetic mother/father or the gestational mother? As far as I understand the laws in TX will be in Cindy’s favor (in this particular case especially since the genetic mother is MIA) and I expect litigation will likey follow. God those poor babies. What a mess.
Elizabeth do you believe that children of egg donors ought to have gestational carriers listed as mothers on their birth records? Is that fair to the child? Fair to force them to live life as if they were this woman’s child when they are not? they did not originate from her.
You don’t believe that donor conception is wrong then do you? Not if your willing to reward the behavior. would you have her adopt or do you think its right that she be named as mother on the birth record?
Oh Elizabeth. You don’t know me but some of your colleagues do. I’m crushed that you and Jennifer hold this opinion it is so contrary to what you’ve said in the past. I feel like a kid that got her ice cream cone knocked out of her hand. I’m watching something that made me happy melt into the cracks of the hot pavement.
What is chilling is that anyone would call someone that pays a fee for someone else’s child a mother.
Explain why you think gestational carriers are biological mothers using something other than your opinion to support the assertion. Specifically stick to science and biology to support the assertion that gestational carriers are biological mothers.
I’m serious. You owe your readers at least that if your basing this whole article on the premise that she is a biological mother. Even biological mothers are not biological mothers until they give birth. While they are pregnant they are expectant mothers . So when the pregnant woman gives birth and attains this status as a mother what exactly would qualify a woman as being a biological mother? Evidence of shared biology is not evidence of biological motherhood to you then what is? You can’t separate genes from biology genes are inside the cells that reproduce cellular biology these are inseparable.
I’m not going to try to speak for Elizabeth, but for me I think I understand you both pretty well, and what I would say about Cindy Close and this case is that the truth about motherhood is its a duality and we have to look at it with different lenses than we do sperm donation. The duality of both sharing genes with a child and risking your life to give birth to it enhances our contribution in an especially dynamic way.
And all sorts of predators, YES, predators, are trying to strip the honor and significance from BOTH ends.
Cindy diminished motherhood herself when she used an anonymous egg donor. And then McMurray diminished it entirely when he said she was “just a surrogate”.
There is irony in this story because in a way Cindy’s own lack of respect for motherhood has come back to haunt her.
I truly do not believe that Elizabeth or Jennifer misrepresent themselves when they say using a donor is insensitive to the child, and indeed, we should be stopping the use of commercialized gamete trading.
But I think their point with this piece is that we’re taking it one step further and disrespecting pregnancy and birth now too.. which is HUGE.
and so obviously a great risk to women.
and with nursing… the chemical flood we get during pregnancy and labor w/ bonding hormones…
to minimize the contribution of birth and delivery as important functions that qualify motherhood is equally as disturbing as disqualifying genetic connection.
Egg “donors” contribute half the child’s genetic package. They are clearly a biological mother of the child. The woman who carries the child in her womb is also a biological mother, I argue, because we are learning more about how the environment in the womb switches genes on and off in the development of the child (epigenetics) as well as the bonding that happens from carrying someone inside your body for nine months and the changes in the woman’s body–she makes milk, she forever bears the scars of labor. She too is a biological mother.
I think third party conception is a bad idea because of the complex identity issues and potential health risks it foists upon the resulting person, as well as the exploitation of women that occurs in egg and womb purchasing etc, and the confusion and concern it raises for other family members of those who have given away their children (ie, wives and parents of sperm donors, etc).
But here we have already living infants and this is not my moment to argue about the demerits of egg donation. Now is the moment to seek reunification of these infants with the mother who loves and wanted them.
This seems very strange to me; how was Mcmurray able to get temporary custody as well as a restraining order, without any evidence of close’s non-motherhood?
Once again the argument here is a property based one. Since biological parents effectively own their children, the children’s father is going to argue Ms. Close has no rights at all. That he is not obligated to share title with someone who has no biological relationship to the children since biology is what assigns title. If you buy a car kit and I agree to build it for you in my garage do I own half the car?
Will his argument is carry any weight in court. His biggest problem is the lack of a surogacy contract. So my guess is he will lose because he did this in Texas, whose laws around surrogacy are outdated and assume surrogacy and biological parenthood are pre-force linked.
He’s got one slim hope that I can see. It’s a family court, who, absent any concrete rights accruing specifically to the children, may do whatever it wants. Like the 3-parent case in Ca, it can be undone but that will take time.
And if it takes two years to settle and Ms. Close wins? Will the troops rise for this guy they way they did for the nice straight white couple with the Cherokee baby? Will ripping these children away from the only home they’ve ever known be armageddon or a necessary evil?
Finally, Marilyn is absolutely correct People whose arguments about everything rest on the foundational idea that biological relationships between parents and children are paramount to the survival of humanity seriously damage their credibility with this 3rd parent argument.
In fact, best argument you have is Marilyn’s. No one should profit when title to a child is transferred and the record of those transfers needs to be complete, transparent and accessible to the child upon achieving majority or in the case of medical emergency sooner. This would not only impact ART, but all adoptions, domestic and international. Whether this would impact the numbers is irrelevant Marilyn is making the only comprehensive, ethical, credible and non-discriminatory case. It also has the added benefit of assigning a positive enforceable right to children.
On a personal note, if I ran the world, idiots like this would be allowed to have pets let alone children.
It is not OK to buy human beings it is not OK to sell them. It is not OK to Give or receive them as gifts. Its not OK to barter or trade them it is not OK to Use them It is not OK It is not OK it is Not OK.
Your saying that it is OK to buy certain human beings. Your saying that some human beings don’t deserve the respect and dignity of being recognized legally as who they really are your saying its just fine to purchase a human being and that motherhood is something you can claim so long as you gestate the human you bought. Your saying that sometimes it is OK to record things different than how they really are. This child has no control over who gestated and delivered them! It is exactly the same as assigning a child a father that is not their biological father without the benefit of an adoption.
This woman’s pregnancy experience is her own experience. It should not give rise to the claim of motherhood if the born child is not related to her because then gestation is just a means to an end of receiving someone else’s child without having to record the truth. It is black market adoption just like sperm donation. It is tricking the system, tricking the child. It does not matter if you tell the child the truth you tell the world a lie – the truth is never recorded and the truth of their existence and relationship within their own family will never be legally recognized and a human being is denied their true identity in service to the woman who gave birth to them she wanted them she bought them or received them as a gift.
Donor reproduction makes it more evident than ever that nothing anyone can do can erase a person’s true origins and who their parents really are. You cannot trade on the prospect of human life so early as to erase the true identity of a person its in every cell of their body. You can only lie about it. Someone can take my kidney and implant it in their body and the dna stays in my kidney and those cells do not reproduce – that person can have a child with my kidney in their body and not a shred of my dna will be evident in their child’s body. We are whole even when the world seeks to separate us. You could gestate my child and not a shred of you dna will be evident in their body when they are born not one of your cells will reproduce to make my baby my child mine.
You can respect the importance of pregnancy without saying these women have a claim to the resulting children without calling them mothers entitled to keep the children. If you are willing to compromise and commodify human life in some instances then why not all? Why does any person deserve their true identity? Why do some people deserve the truth why do some people get legal recognition of their genetic kinship why do some people deserve the benefit of a court approved adoption why bother trying to protect any child from being trafficked why bother making black market adoption illegal? Why not just let private contracts for people’s children be the guiding principal in this global economy?
Alana you are in a unique position that I could never hope to understand but that I have deep unending empathy for so please excuse me if I offend you or your family my heart is very much in the right place I know that it is in the right place. Elizabeth and Jennifer are like me in that they are interested in stopping donor conception without being either donors themselves or donor offspring – they have done so many good things to help people who are donor offspring they have used their political clout and their art and talent as a writer and a film maker to make a difference in the lives of millions of people who will probably die before they are ever given equal rights so it makes no sense that they would single out the offspring of egg donors and say that those people are different they are special and it was OK for the people that purchased them to be named as mother.
I don’t want to think they’d use the people they were trying to help but it looks like it and it. Maybe they should examine their motives and write something else together like a candid explanation of this very disappointing show of support for buying babies. Read the comments on Huff Post they are by people who are raising donor offspring thanking them for their show of support. They turned their backs on ya’ll. Can’t spin it any other way.
Mont I would say this as a point of clarification – biological parents do not own their children. The relationship gives rise to the title of parent but only for the purpose of identifying who has the obligation to care for them. The real problem is not that unrelated people think children are property to be bought its that biological parents believe children are their property to sell. If they cannot raise their children they are charged with finding someone who can in an ethical manner and sale or gifting is not ethical for it treats their child as goods to be traded. Bio parents need to stop thinking of their children as their property.
Elizabeth,
“…..reunification of these infants with the mother who loves them and wanted them”
What is great about your response is your placing *intention* over biology. She “loves them and wanted them.” Where have I heard that over and over again?……From parents who have created their families through 3PR.
Kisarita – I think the guy in this case got the gestational mother to sign something saying he was the father and she was not genetically related to the baby. So genes trumped everything else.
Maryilyn – here’s my take on the motherhood issue. Biological motherhood is different from biological fatherhood. Men become fathers by getting their sperm to an egg. Women become mothers by getting their egg fertilized and then carrying it inside them and nourishing it for nine months. Motherhood isn’t the same thing as fatherhood.
In the past, these two things were never separated. We can only do it now by actually cutting into one woman’s body to take out her eggs.
When we split up the functions of motherhood, we end up with two women who are biologically mothers.
That shouldn’t take away from the importance of the genetic mother. She is the child’s mother.
I know that legally you aren’t a mother until your child is born, and I am glad of that. I don’t want to be sued for drinking too much coffee during pregnancy of something. (I remember your point on this, but the comments got to their limit. I agree with you.)
So we have a problem.
Legally, we only want a child to have two parents. Legally, we don’t want to be a mother until our child is born.
Biologically, when you split up the bodily functions of motherhood, you have more than one mother. Who then has the right to raise the child or decide who will raise her?
This is a he said-she said case, in part. One party is lying. There is clearly more to this story. Why do you, Elizabeth, Jennifer and Alana, assume Close is the truth-teller?
The thing is Dianne you are arriving at your conclusion about biological motherhood by redefining the words your using based on something other than the science of biology. The individuals whose cells reproduce to form the body of what will be their offspring when born, are the only individuals who conceive, the only individuals whose cells reproduce. Some day soon if not now possibly experimentally they will be able to gestate human beings in artificial wombs or in other animals or whatever and it won’t change the biological source of the individual once born. Yes pregnancy is a critical step in taking people from being expectant parents to being actual parents, but, you’ll note that a gestational carrier is interchangeable without altering the biological make up of the resulting born individual. Epigenics is nothing more than saying that environment has a profound impact on a developing mind and body but it does not change people’s biology. Environment can make people sick, it can keep them healthy it can foster growth or stunt it, but it does not change a person’s biology. Parents have influence over their offspring because they are the source of their offspring. Not everyone who has influence over a child is the biological source of that child. It is important to document the source of organic life especially human life because that is how we identify things and people. Skip that step or obscure it and your denying someone or something’s true position in the world in relationship to everything that ever was or ever will be. To accept a person or thing at face value for who they truly are given where they truly originated is essential to treating that thing or person with respect. If you don’t care where they came from if you would prefer them to be someone or something else more to your liking then well what can be said about that. The carrier is interchangeable the parents are not. Change a carrier you get the same person in the end. Change a parent different person altogether. Change or remove an unrelated intended parent, you would still get the same person in the end. Change a parent, get a different person. I’m sorry but as important as the pregnant woman is she is interchangeable she could just as easily been another woman and the child would be the same person with different experiences.
It is important to record her identity as the woman who gave birth, her health and habits may well have had an impact on the child’s development while in the womb. I think it is important for the CDC to start keeping track of that separately from documenting the mother because with the mother they track and do studies on heritable disease, etc. But she should not be able to lay claim to the child as the law currently allows. It means people are treated as property and it means people can loose their families without consent. Look at UC Irvine where hundreds of children were born to gestational carriers without the permission of the people whose eggs sperm and embryos were stolen. Those people have no idea who is raising their children, what their names are. Imagine being one of those kids stolen from your family or imagine being the family of those kids.
And Ralph the hipocracy is is killing me with their stance on this.
You can’t split genetics and biology up sorry can’t do it. You can however split gestation from biological cell reproduction. If you were looking for an accurate term to pair with the word mother it would be gestational mother. But then all those women trying to lie would not like that because they really want to believe they are biological mothers that they somehow share their biology in a way that lasts in the body of the born individual. They want to believe that the baby is not built in their body but out of their body. That their blood somehow got into the fetus’s body. The thing about breastfeeding come on what about wet nurses? Did that make them the kid’s mothers? They have milk banks does that change the kids mother? My kid drinks cows milk does that make them a cow? That makes me reconsider my use of dairy products cause eww…but it does not make my kid a cow. Kisarita once said she eats fish it does not make her a fish. Its who you originate from guys that is who should be held accountable for you. She might not be the best to raise you but she at least needs to be recorded and accountable at the outset until suitable caregivers can be found in an ethical way that affords the born person some safety and dignity.
Biology can refer to anything LIFE does. “Biology” is being used as a weasel word in several of the preceding posts by more-than-one poster (and not necessarily intentionally). I think the civil thing to do is not to point them out, but to encourage people to read carefully and skeptically where the word is being used (including here) Also, it seems to me, that a lot of what is actually being discussed here is the emotional and symbolic value of specific aspects of human biology.
I’m a biologist and for pedantry’s sake:
1) Genetics, gestation, and child-rearing are all part of human biology and all have real and life-long effects on the physiology and anatomy of humans. It’s all biology. I agree that more precision would be worth the trouble. That said, the emotional and symbolic content of these more precisely defined aspects of biology would still be in the eye of the beholder.
2) Responses to environment are biology. Again, the symbolic and emotional content of those responses is in the eye of the beholder.
3) Epigenetics is encoded by chemical alterations of DNA (i.e. technically turning the molecule into something similar but not the same). These chemical changes have strong effects on human development and physiology. It definitely changes your biology and in heritable ways (for honesty’s sake, I’m not sure this has been formally demonstrated in humans yet, but it is true in a number of species). Again, the symbolic and emotional content of those chemical changes is in the eye of the beholder.
4) Maternal blood in fetal circulation and vice-versa are established facts (although it’s pretty limited, all things considered). Again, the symbolic and emotional content of those facts are in the eye of the beholder.
5) Simply because of the way chemistry works, there are atoms in your body that you got from your gestational mother (not just delivered by her from the environment but atoms that had been part of her and atoms that are now part of you) and she from her ancestors. That said, the chemistry of Life passes atoms around pretty promiscuously including from the animals and plants you eat…. Soooooo, again, the symbolic and emotional content of those atoms is in the eye of the beholder.
I could go on and on…no, really, I could; I’m a biologist, I live for this stuff… but I should spare you…OK, one more just for fun:
6) The body that you think of as you isn’t all “you”. There are more bacterial cells in your body than there are human cells. They are not invaders, they are part of your normal anatomy (your microbiome) and are more-or-less unique to you. These bacteria have profound effects on your physiology and have had profound effects on your development. They were inherited in part from your gestational mother who got them from her mother etc etc etc. of course, the emotional and symbolic content of that legacy is in the eye of the beholder.
Ahhhhh I feel better.
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OK, on topic – While I agree with Ralph that there are probably enough unexamined biases to go around, I think the legal case clearly turns on the lack of a written agreement. From a more emotional POV, I feel like outright victory for one adult or another seems like an unworthy goal compared to integrating this group into a meaningful whole as imperfect as it might be… for the sake of the children ….but that’s my own bais.
Oh Hernan. Who is biologically related to that child now that it is born?
The genetic mother or gestational mother is not a dualistic formation. It’s not as if one person is a mother, than the other isn’t.
I disagree with Alana that it has anything to do with risking one’s life. If I jump into a burning building to save a child, that does not make me its mother.
I disagree with Elizabeth that it has anything to do with epigenetics. Environment affects our genes, sure, but if you make that our reason than you are but affirming the supremacy of genetics.
My understanding is based on human psychology. To put it simply, the technological splitting of pregnancy and genetics is foreign to human psychology, and therefore we are wired to associate pregnancy with parenthood. We are wired hormonally and chemically at the time of birth. And although the impact of this fades with time, we are wired by nearly all of our sociocultural institutions that have evolved over thousands of years.
I’m not saying this is universal; not every pregnant woman will feel a bond to the baby,just as not every person raised by non-genetic parents will feel a loss. I’m just saying that this is a norm that has characterized and continues to characterize our kinship networks. The norm may be weakening- not a good thing in my book- but it is far from gone.
In a case of a competition between a genetic mother and a gestational mother, I’d probably go with the genetic mother or by the contract. But this is but a choice between BAD and WORSE. no matter what the decision is, somebody’s going to end up with an unfair, unjust, deal.
In this case there is no genetic mother competing with Close. So there is no reason to deny close’s parenthood. Mcmurray doesn’t get to create a child with no mother just cuz he feels like it.
@Hernan – I don’t think it’s a case of weasely definitions so much as trying to deal with a new situation that hasn’t been defined. We have to figure out where we are going to draw the line.
The idea that the woman who gave the eggs is the only mother is based on male biology. We defined what a father is based on who gives the sperm. Now we have a new situation – genetic mothers and mothers who carry a baby in their bodies for nine months.
Who is more of a mother? How should we choose between the two of them legally if there is a conflict? Why do genes give you more of a right than carrying someone in your body for nine months? What in the world would really be better for the child?
Ultimately, I think the problem is that we are trying to split up biological motherhood at all. We aren’t always doing it for good reasons. Hiring one woman to give the eggs and another to gestate the baby isn’t medically necessary. It adds medical risks to the situation. It violates the principle of first, do no harm. It’s being done either to get better eggs or to avoid the situation where a mother agrees to give up her baby and then changes her mind.
@kisarita – I like the way you put it, “the technological splitting of pregnancy and genetics is foreign to human psychology.” We are wired a certain way. I put more emphasis on biology than culture here. Pregnancy and childbirth make you want to be maternal. Pregnancy is a very physical thing. This new way of doing things goes against some very basic human urges.
@Ralph – I agree with you, this particular case is a situation where either she is lying or he is lying. I can’t come up with a way to see this as a misunderstanding or miscommunication.
Before the trial, however, I don’t think the baby should have been taken from her. I think she should have been allowed to nurse the baby.
There is no good solution that I can see to this particular story. I cannot imagine the three adults co-parenting in a friendly way for the good of their child.
Based on what the articles are saying legally, both she and the biological father have custody rights in Texas, so I think they are going to have to learn to get along.
It raises a lot of questions about surrogacy, though. One of the issues seems to be that in Texas it is illegal for a woman to be a surrogate who has never had a child. That strikes me as a good law that shouldn’t be changed. It means, though, that whoever did the medical procedure in this case is doing something wrong. Either they were trying to ignore the law or they knew that she was not a surrogate and should have said so immediately.
Regulation for malpractice would help a lot here.
Another legal issue is that in Texas only married couples can hire a surrogate. I think that’s a good thing, too, but this case points out the need for same sex marriage to be legal. If hiring someone to carry a child is legal, it’s better for the kids to have it be clear what’s going on.
Ralph, I gave his attorney and the hospital a chance to talk and neither would.
Regarding intention, yes, with already born children who have been conceived into a mess, I favor the loving birth mother who wants them over the bio father who started filing injunctions against her the day she gave birth, and who is currently winning.
There is something fishy about the whole story, no matter who much she’s being portrayed as the “loving birth mother.” I expect another shoe is going to drop and that mom may not be telling all the truth or may be a little unbalanced.
Nice touch Jeffrey. Hysterical women etc. I am sure there are many sides to this story. I too look forward to learning how the heck a TX court and hospital justified taking infants away from a woman who had just given birth to them.
Have you talked to this woman or her attorneys? Why are you so confident her story is true?
If Close’s story proves to be true, I hope McMurray does not get away with such viciously immoral behavior.
However, if Close had agreed to be a surrogate and reneged, it would make sense (and be important) for McMurray to initiate legal action as soon as possible after the twins’ birth.
The father is not married to this woman and he has a right to raise his child wherever and with whomever he so chooses.
The woman is a gestational carrier and the child has no bond with her no matter how much bond she may have with him or her. If fetus’ were capable of the kind of bonding that comes with human interaction, they’d be born sooner.
I’m just so outraged that either of you would ever ever ever find it excusable that a person who is not someone’s offspring be recorded as their child without going through court approved guardianship or court approved adoption. Effort and desire and the scars of pregnancy do not a mother make – not the kind of mother whose name belongs on an original birth record that is suppose to be a health record for the person named on it and since she is named on that record it is USELESS FOR MEDICAL PURPOSES. It also seals this child’s fate as never being able to be legally recognized as a member of his or her own biological family.
So what if this woman does not get to keep this kid!? It’s not her kid, never was going to be her kid. Social parents of donor offspring are granted their parenthood at the behest of the biological parents. It is only with their permission that they enjoy playing the roll of either mother or father. Were it not for the father’s consent and the consent of the estranged biological mother who is aparently a willing donor, this woman would never even have experienced pregnancy. Its just a damn gamble for her that she may or may not be able to raise the resulting kid. In my opinion when an egg donor is involved that woman’s name should go on the birth record where it belongs and if she does not wish to raise her kid she should go to court and relinquish her child for adoption like the rest of the law abiding biological parents have to do when they can’t raise their kids and want someone else to do it for them.