Surrogate Birthing: Not Your Babies Momma
Created and posted for your consideration by Matthew Glenn at 10:38 PM
Last night was sorta date night. Both my wife and I got home earlier than normal and so we took advantage of it and rented a movie. It was supposed to be pizza and a movie, but freakin Costco closed at 6pm on Saturdays! I know WTF?? They can stay open all week long till 8:30 or so, why not on the weekends as well? Anyway, we had to settle for Panda Express and a movie. I know, it just doesn't have that same ring to it as "Pizza and a movie".
Anyway we decided to rent the only movie that I hadn't seen and wasn't a horror movie, Baby Momma. Now, to give you a quick overview, the main character is a very successful business woman who is now 37 and is having a mid-life crisis, well because she's 37, single, and has no children. Everyone around her seems to be getting pregnant and all the babies are starring at her. So she goes to a sperm bank to get pregnant. She tries and tries but no dice, so she goes back to the sperm clinic and they do what they should have done in the first place, and take exams/X-rays. Low and behold, she can't have kids because she has abnormal tubes, and has about a 1 and a million chance of getting pregnant. So she decides on Surrogate birthing. Basically, her eggs are good, she just can't get pregnant, the little sperms can't get in to where the eggs are. So, she contracts a very price company to find a suitable host (willing pregnant lady) and they inject a fertilized egg into "the host". The host gets paid for everything, medical etc, and they then give birth but the baby goes back to biological parent.
That was the plan, but of course this is Hollywood and that doesn't happen. 
I wont ruin the movie for you, you gotta see it yourself, it has some funny moments but I was disappointed with Tina Fey, I had heard such good things about her writing. Anyway, the movie had me thinking ALOT about the topic, hence the reason for the post. Would you the reader PAY or BE PAID by someone to have a baby? Would you be able to give that baby up that you kept inside you, and just hand it over to the rightful biological parents?
Could you, if you were financially secure and unable to have children with your partner, PAY someone to do what you can't? Now, I know what several of you are thinking, I'd just adopt. Well, it isn't that simple anymore. Have any of you TRIED adopting a child, especially a child of the sex/race you want? It's damn near impossible these days. Most people wanting to adopt spend 10s of thousands of dollars in the process, a lot get screwed out of a lot of money. A couple from Church had to fly to CHINA and stay for 2 weeks while the government observed them before they could take their adopted chinese daughter back to the USA. Personally, I am completely for this type of thing, as long as it is done ethically. Here in the USA so far the states that allow it, things are done pretty well. You have to usually go through an agency, and you pay for medical support, food etc, but it isn't really a way to "get rich quick". 
In India, it is completely legal and it is fast becoming very popular in Europe to pay for Indian woman to carry fetuses to fill term and give birth vaginally. The 3rd world prices make it very affordable for middle class couples from all over the world to fly and the Indian people are willing and accepting. Clinics are quickly becoming competitive and so is pricing. My fears are quickly becoming reality and there is this huge "Womb for Rent" going on. 
I'm really not sure how I feel about that. It seems to cheapen the human species and brings it down a level. I am completely for it if a family member wants to help another, or a close friend, but turning it into an expensive commercial industry just kind of doesn't seem very ethical, even to me.
Baby Makin(g) Machine: The Talk Again
I wouldn't want to hire a surrogate, I'd rather adopt myself.
I am considering being an egg donor. I'm not totally decided yet, I don't like the idea of someone having my child before I do, but we'll see. I'm thinking about it... A lot!
As far as other people being surrogates, if they are able to do it, and not as a huge moneymaking process, but for medical expenses and a SMALL payment above that, then more power to them. It's a wonderful gift to be able to give to a couple who wants a child.
I would not be at all concerned about getting attached to a baby that isn't even mine and makes me miserable everyday for 9 months. I'd be saying good riddance, kid. I've got all the kids I can handle.
As for hiring a surrogate myself, no. I would maybe do it if it was a friend. I don't know, actually.
How 'deeply' saddening to see a woman make such a selfish decision to engineer life by having some doctor/scientist "conceive", then "implant" her child in another woman's womb. And why?...in order to "gain" a child through the work of a bunch of other people + a lot of money.
Never mind the father of this surrogate-conceived/birthed child...or the sacred conjugal 'ACT' (of a husband and wife giving themselves fully to one another)which is rooted in this child's creation.
The most precious, fragile, and incredibly sentimental stage of a baby's life can never be more 'separated' from his mother, through surrogate birthing. It is a 'disgraceful' approach to motherhood, a robbery to that child who deserves his mother, and the most natural order to his life. It just boggles my mind to see how people will barely question this issue, or see it as an opportunity to be "lax" and "open minded" about it just because a woman cannot conceive naturally. The whole concept is "selfish"....for a child is not "owed" to anyone...
Life is a miracle given to a couple by God. Engineered conception for ones 'own' desire just treats life as a mere "purchase" to own through money and using other people. Through living according to nature and what God 'gives' is living by true faith...and accepting the gifts. Always remember that a child is a 'gift'...never one to "buy" or "engineer". Surrogate birthing not only "cheapens" a baby's life and the mothers 'responsibility' to her child in the most intimate stages... but it strips the essence of the "miracle" of it all in which nature holds us responsibly to...
Nature is designed a certain way, for a certain reason. There is a process to 'becoming' a mother. The mother herself has a responsibility to her child. Surrogate motherhood is plainly and simply a cheapening of the miracle process of mother and child.
It is also becoming too much of an opportunity to exploit women who are either poor or in third world countries and that is horrific. We should not use women who live in poverty as baby makers for the rich. I even read people look for surrogates in the states and ask them to get Medicaid or find a surrogate on Medicaid to foot the bills for the pregnancy.
So - I would consider doing it for a close friend or family member, but the whole "womb for rent" thing is terrifying!
The movie is very funny though! :)
Our surrogacy is being done in Utah by a friend who offered to be our surrogate. Actually, the spirit inspired her to offer and I won't go into other personal detail here in regard to that.
Being involved in surrogacy made me dislike the movie 'baby momma'- it is soooo unrealistic. I get that it is a comedy, but the psychological and medical background checks that are required are just as involved, indeed in Utah require the same resports that are necessary to facilitate an adoption. The characters in the movie would never have been approved for surrogacy. Yeah, I get its a comedy, but still- I didn't like that they portrayed the surrogate as someone dumb- what a horrible way to portray someone who is giving a childless couple the opportunity to be a family! Our surrogate is not dumb! She has a college degree and is VERY smart!
And to be very frank, we found surrogacy in our situation to be LESS costly than private adoption.
The reality of surrogacy is nothing like what you see in TV shows.