Global Issues Of Surrogacy

In the globalization world, communication among countries, areas is extremely important, and the ways of international linkage are rapidly changing. This paper’s aim is to give more understanding about one of the most important issues of dynamic global linkages: International Marriages - Surrogacy

I. History

Surrogacy is the practice of a woman carrying the biological child of another individual or couple. With this process, the surrogate mother will be artificially inseminated, and will then carry out the pregnancy, eventually giving the child to the intended parents upon its birth. There are two different types of surrogacy, including: traditional surrogacy and gestational surrogacy.

Traditional Surrogacy

In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate

In this case, a woman was able to give birth via the use of eggs donated by another. This later led to the first successful gestational surrogacy in 1985.

In recent times, surrogacy has gone on to scale new heights of popularity. In fact, in 2005, a 58 year old woman donned the role of a surrogate mother to give birth to her own twin granddaughters.

In the recent times, surrogacy is more and more prevalent. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the number of reported babies born live in the U.S. as a result of gestational surrogacy has more than doubled in seven years — from 738 in 2004 to 1,593 in 2011.

It is also known that there have been differing rates of success for the various types of surrogacy procedures. For instance, when using in vitro fertilization with mothers who are under the age of 35, success can be as high as 60 percent or more. The success rate tends to decrease, though, as the surrogate and/or the biological mother increase in age.

“More couples are marrying later in life and find themselves under stricter time constraints for having children. More people with fertility problems are choosing gestational surrogacy over adoption, taking the opportunity to pass their DNA on to their child. And more people are aware and accepting of same-sex couples wanting a family” - Block and Zager,

Also it can be a complex process for the intended mother to be named as the parent, especially in cases where the surrogate is the biological mother. Hence, intended parents must prepare a legal contract where the surrogate agrees to abandon her maternal rights and thereby allows the intended mother to adopt the child. Besides, some jurisdictions forbid commercial surrogacy. Moreover, if doctors discover that the fetus has potential birth defects or some other health problems, then the intended parents might decide to discontinue the pregnancy. This can give rise to several legal problems, particularly if they use the sperm from a donor or eggs not belonging to the surrogate for pregnancy. In this case, the problem is who gets to decide whether the pregnancy should be carried on or terminated.

2. Surrogates’ refusal to give the child

In certain instances, the surrogate mothers have developed a strong attachment to the baby, and thus refused to give away the child on birth. In some of these cases, the surrogates, being biological mothers, have won the cases. However, in countries where surrogacy is allowed, this has gone against them and they have lost their visitation or custody rights.

3. Breach of