Surrogacy: Further Support for Abortion Rights

A SYTYCB entry

Now someone can pay thousands of dollars to a woman in India to be a surrogate for her or his child. This has been bothering me for a while. On the one hand it’s a way for someone to find a surrogate who is not otherwise able to, and a woman in India gets an opportunity to improve her financial situation by providing this service. On the other hand, I see it as a way of taking advantage of the women’s financial situations and willingness to do whatever they can to earn the money. In a sense, these women are renting their wombs.

Another aspect of this issue that occurred to me as I was watching the story is that surrogacy in general (aside from the issue of “exporting” it to India) is another example of when abortion may be indicated. To increase chances of a successful pregnancy, the doctor injects a few embryos to help insure that one implants. There is then also the chance that more than one will implant, decreasing the safety of all those embryos in the womb. The doctor then will need to abort all but one, in order to have a healthy and safe pregnancy for the remaining one.

Dr. Patel talks about all these details and risks with the parents and woman who is to be the surrogate. Due to religious reasons one or both parties involved may tell the doctor to inject only two embryos, for example, because they want to minimize the risk for abortion. This is certainly a conversation between the parties and the doctor and it is important that the doctor explain all possible scenarios so that the parties involved can make a decision with which they are comfortable.

And that is the point right there, that the parties involved are making the decision, not the law.
If abortion were completely outlawed, then there would be less of an opportunity for surrogacy, something that is an important option for those who are not able to go through pregnancy themselves.