Surrogate Handmaids and Contract Babies

CBS’ “Madam Secretary” Misses the Boat

Since its inception, I had been fan of CBS-TV’s Madam Secretary. It’s a clever political drama with a good cast headed up by Téa Leone as a mother in the title role and Sebastian Arcelus as her husband, a theology professor, who adds a philosophical view of world issues.

I had been an avid fan from its inception….until, that is, the Nov. 18, 2018 episode that totally miss-handled the topic of international commercial surrogacy. For starters, the script totally disregarding outrage of the practice that has led to its prohibition in the following nations according to Surogay.com:

· Cambodia

· Denmark

· France

· Germany

· Ireland

· Italy

· Spain

· Portugal

· Bulgaria

· Nepal

In other jurisdictions, civil and criminal penalties apply for the people who enter into these kinds of arrangements that contract for a child.

The writers chose to make surrogacy a personal issue, affecting the Vice President whose impending grandchild was to be born to a surrogate caught up in a raid in Laos, making it an issue effecting tiny American citizens being born overseas. But not all babies born to “wombs for hire” are in fact biologically, genetically related to those who contract for them. Surrogate babies may or may not have been created using the intended parents’ gametes.

Additionally, the wish for becoming father or mother of children who possess ones’ own genetic material is not a right either a human right. Wishes are not systematically equivalent to rights that require protection or intervention from top levels of the government.

WHY?

Why do we cavalierly accept the use of a human being signing a one-sided contract to grow a child? Feminists and others debate prostitution as being a woman’s “right” to earn a living when legalized and regulated versus the fact that far too many women and girls being exploited by forced prostitution and human trafficking. Despite which side of that debate you are on, no one casually says: “Saturday night I had a ‘date’ with a prostitute,” or “I took a prostitution tourism vacation.” No one brags or is proud of soliciting sex. No one shares those vacation pictures. Why not? Because using people is not valued nor is paying for personal intimacy, even when it’s legal. Yet, purchase nine months of a woman’s life and buy the end product and people celebrate, ignoring the means to the end.

The Madam Secretary episode ignored all reasons surrogacy is illegal in most of the world and the Sept. 24, 2018, “International call for a global ban on womb rental (surrogacy)” signed by more than 100 feminist and civil rights organizations in 16 countries, all of whom:

1. Call upon all heads of State and Government who are participating at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly to make public statements in support of the human rights of women and children and for a global ban on womb rental (‘surrogacy’).

2. Urge all governments to take all necessary measures to prosecute and prevent the womb rental at international and national levels, with a close cooperation between governments and a proactive role of embassies, consulates, police and judicial systems.

3. Request the outlawing and shutting down of intermediary agencies, clinics and all businesses involved in the rent-a-womb industry in all countries, as well as the banning of this industry’s advertisements.

4. Exhort the funding governments of the United Nations to review their financial contributions to the UN agencies that support the legalization of womb rental — the so-called ‘altruistic’ surrogacy — namely the United Nations

They call for this ban on surrogacy because it is “a serious violation of the rights and dignity of women and children” exploits women and commodifies newborns as subjects to commercial agreements while risking their “physical and psychological integrity” and undermining women’s right to filiation and other fundamental rights.

Surrogacy also violates the right of children to know their origins. In fact, the hiring of wombs is and is “The most prominent form of trafficking in women and children for the purpose of reproductive exploitation; it is a business that provides multi-million-dollar benefits to intermediary agencies and clinics.”

Surrogacy violate the fundamental human rights of women and children stipulated in international conventions and treaties such as the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, Articles 3 and 6), the Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery (Art. 1), the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (Art. 7, 9 and 35), the Optional Protocol to the International Convention of the Rights of the Child (Art. 2 a and 3), and the Additional Protocol to the Convention against Translational Organized Crime (Art. 3 a).

This statement has been signed by more than one hundred feminist women’s and civil society organizations:

I am appalled that the show was terribly one-sided and heavy-handed in presenting such a hot-button and controversial subject. It simply ignored very serious concerns and presented surrogacy as reproductive right that harms no one which is totally false. Women risk their lives to carry babies for a fee and children born via surrogacy may be denied access to half or all of their genetic medical history.

References:

Ethical case for abolishing all forms of surrogacy by Dr. Catherine Lynch

The Pimping of Pregnancy: Exposing the International Commercial Surrogacy Business by Julie Bindel

The Other Side of Surrogacy. What Gestational Surrogates Really go Through. by Jennifer Block

The Overlooked Risks of Surrogacy for Women by Mary Rose Somarrib

The Sherri Shepherd Case: One More Reason to Ban Commercial Surrogacy by Mirah Riben