I thought that language which dehumanized women was supposed to be verboten. But in the procreation as manufacture world of IVF, surrogate mothers, who used to be known as birth mothers, are now called “gestational carriers.” As in the recent birth of a child for Nicole Kidman and her husband by a surrogate birth mother. From the story:
The couple announced on Monday the arrival of Faith Margaret Kidman Urban, born on Dec 28 at a Nashville, Tennessee, hospital. Kidman and Urban released a statement saying they are “truly blessed” and thanked everyone for their support, “our gestational carrier” in particular.
Gestational carriers. Gestational carriers. I am still trying to get my mind around that. It doesn’t even sound human.
I am reminded of Dune’s “axlotl tanks,” which are women who are lobotomized and then their bodies used as gestational carriers for clones. Now, surrogates mothers aren’t lobotomized, of course. But they are being objectified.
January 17th, 2011 | 8:04 pm
Please get over yourself. Surrogate, gestational carrier, birth mother. The woman did great and has been thanked. You have no involvement in it so stop prattling on as if you are relevant to what has happened.
January 17th, 2011 | 8:24 pm
Oy vey.
Lily, were you ever a surrogate?
If not, your comment is at best, sheer speculation. I have been there, and Wesley is dead on the money.
January 17th, 2011 | 9:06 pm
It also makes them sound like a public health menace. Applying the word “carriers” to people evokes Typhoid Mary! It’s as if they’re a disease vector!
January 17th, 2011 | 9:06 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys. Vince Humphreys said: SHS: Objectifying Birth Mothers as “Gestational Carriers” http://bit.ly/hIYWjp #tcot [...]
January 17th, 2011 | 9:10 pm
[...] Continue [...]
January 17th, 2011 | 9:12 pm
It DOES sound very Twilite Zone-y Creepy. Wasn’t the egg put into the humans to be the “Gestational Carrier” for the ALIENS!!! Let’s think a a MUCH better way to refer to these amazing women.
January 17th, 2011 | 9:16 pm
While waiting for my daughter outside of the book store, I heard it on the radio.
I thought “gestational carrier”! How inhumane!
You are right on Wesley, keep up the good work.
Don’t let those who prefer to keep their “Eyes Wide Shut” hinder you.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Daniel. Thanks. I expect heat from this. This whole area has become one of intense feelings of entitlement.
January 17th, 2011 | 9:17 pm
[...] [Source Here] [...]
January 17th, 2011 | 9:18 pm
If surrogates don’t like what they are called, then they could decide not to do surrogacy. Becoming a surrogate is a choice, made by an adult. If it makes you feel objectified, then don’t do it. Its as simple as that.
January 17th, 2011 | 9:23 pm
[...] Continued On This Site [...]
January 17th, 2011 | 9:27 pm
I am going to assume Wesley is a man. When he grows a uterus and ovaries he can tell me how to perceive a “gestational carrier” “surrogate” or whatever other name you want to label a woman who has the love and humanity within herself to give life to a child that is so wanted and loved by someone or someones who can’t physically or medically give life to a child on their own. And any woman who has given this wonderful gift and believes Wesley’s opinion should not have been allowed to be a “surrogate”. JMHO
January 17th, 2011 | 10:22 pm
KA
That argument is silly on the surface, and even sillier in depth.
I have personally dealt with this issue in my own life, and likewise with the lives of other surrogates and all the families involved.
I can assure you that you know absolutely nothing of which you pretend to speak.
Nary a thing. You owe Wes, even though he lacks a uterus and ovaries, an apology.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
jb: How do the women handle surrendering babies they gestated? I would think that at least for some, it would be devastating.
January 17th, 2011 | 10:27 pm
Google Noel Keane . . . of his 153, I was directly involved in two.
I think I can speak to the issue.
January 17th, 2011 | 10:28 pm
Wesley
Give a few to gather my thoughts–I will respond
January 17th, 2011 | 10:38 pm
I was married to a woman who, before she told me about it and I had to deal with the results and the children involved, went through Noel Keane and “surrogat-ed” twice.
She never “gave up” the children . . . they were “hers” in discussions; she made many inappropriate contacts and sent gifts and in all manner of ways intruded upon matters from which she had promised to remain.
One, she was the birth mother, and however open to criticism saying so makes me, God built a mother’s love into the whole system, as a matter of preservation. Two, her grief at giving up the children was channeled into trying to make contact all the time. Three, it ripped at our marriage–we each had two grown children from a previous marriage, and even our own kids were puzzled.
Needless to say, our marriage ended when she came up pregnant yet again (I had had a vas 20 years before), and lost that baby. Within months she was pregnant yet again, had that baby and eventually married the father. She is now well into her fifties with a young child.
I could make no sense of it then, and now, in retrospect, I can only do what others do, and that is, stab at a guess.
It is a very strange situation . . . bizarre.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 11:49 pm
jb: Thanks for sharing that. Indeed, gestating is not an incubation. Whether by biology or otherwise, it creates intense intimacy between mother and child. Gestational units, I mean we might as well take it all the way, have to suffer from that, at least some of them. And since, barring a close familial relationship or friendship, these will usually be commercial transactions, it is poor women who will gestate and well off women who will rent uterine and hormonal services.
January 17th, 2011 | 11:28 pm
For me it isn’t the idea of surrogacy itself that’s offensive, it’s some of the contentious issues that go along with it. For instance, Wesley covered a story a few months ago about a couple that demanded that the woman they hired to carry their child to term have an abortion when tests indicated that the baby had Down Syndrome. The woman didn’t want to, so the couple threatened to sue her, and she finally did terminate the pregnancy. Not only does this violate the woman’s right to her own body, which is the point of abortion rights, it is reflective of the very entitlement and objectification that Wesley writes about. The couple literally felt entitled to the child THEY WANTED, so much so that they forced a woman to undergoe an abortion against her will. This treated the surrogate mother as a mere object to be manipulated in service of the parents’ demands and the fetus she was carrying as a product that didn’t meet quality control standards.
January 17th, 2011 | 11:59 pm
Safepres
As you and Wes understand clearly, there are any number of ways to do something, and then. there is THE way.
I am so old-fashioned-slap-me-in-the-back-of–my-head-in-the-church-pew that anyone trotting all the new-fangled morality before has lost before they started. Except . . .
They really have lost before they started. The situation you describe is a Nightmare Morality Play except . . .
Real.
And that is sad. I mean sad as I mean “Christ wept.” We have become barbarians, but we won’t be aware of the fact until the News at 11.
January 18th, 2011 | 12:36 am
Wesley
Don’t mean to jump the gun and steal your thunder . . .
Yesterday’s Old Testament Reading was Isaiah 49:1-7.
Verse one and Roe v. Wade are in no way compatible. Neither are any bastardizations, such as the subject of our discussion above.
1/22/73 – 1/22/11 . . . 38 years of legalized murder. Rachel weeping for her children . . .
Jesus, too.
January 18th, 2011 | 2:21 am
I’m not sure why this is surprising. Human history is full of examples of the use of language to dehumanize, and this is one of them. Surrogate mother is a loaded term because it is personal, and reminds us that this isn’t some lab process. Gestational carrier is much more abstract.
Then again, if many of those women didn’t wait till the mid to late thirties to decide to have a child, this would be a nonissue.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 18th, 2011 at 10:26 am
Dblade: Why not fifties and sixties? Entitlement knows no age limit.
January 18th, 2011 | 4:39 am
Oh, relax, Catholic Church haters AND followers…you don’t have to subscribe to EVERYTHING your chosen faith subscribes to. In every faith, I am sure there are tenets that aren’t followed by every single follower. As far as I remember, using artificial means to get pregnant ARE NOT supported by the Church; however, at most it would be a venial sin. The Church believes that God essentially “bestows” (for lack of a better word) you with child and you shouldn’t prevent (contraception) or promote conception artificially. As far as I know there is nothing in the Bible that specifically forbids a surrogate (to the best of my knowledge); I don’t think they could exactly foresee artifical insemination, etc. It is up to the person to decide whether to proceed with artificial means of conception. It’s not like it is a Deadly sin or something. Frankly, the fact you are trying to bring a life into the world so desperately outweighs any objections from the Church imho. The Church can kiss my patooskie (and I am a Catholic, albeit, lapsed)!
January 18th, 2011 | 7:02 am
[...] Said Wesley Smith: Gestational carriers. Gestational carriers. I am still trying to get my mind around that. It doesn’t even sound human. [...]
January 18th, 2011 | 7:03 am
Interesting that the critics seem to miss the point.
January 18th, 2011 | 7:17 am
This particular thread is beginning to sound like a Chautauqua tent revival.
January 18th, 2011 | 7:40 am
Words do matter. A lot.
The term “gestational carrier”, besides being ugly, creepy and dehumanizing, serves a very specific purpose. It takes “mother” out of the equation. It creates a legal and moral fiction that the woman who carried the child in her womb for nine months and went through labor to bring a baby into the world has no relation to that child.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 18th, 2011 at 10:25 am
Peter S. BINGO! She is nothing but a uterus in the end, no matter how nice people are to her. The term reminds her of that and keeps the biological parents (if that) at a sufficient emotional distance.
Zoe Reply:
March 13th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
The term gestational carrier implies birth carrier, the reason the term mother is take out of the equation is because the biological mother did not give up her rights to continue mothering the child but accepted the assistance from another women to substitute her position for 38 weeks for the duration of the pregnancy. The intention from the begining was that once the baby is born will go home with biological parents who conceived it. Scientifically the gestational carrier acts as an incubator however we are human and understand the emotional and physical challenges of pregnancy. Gestational carriers are not the actual mothers of the child but go through pregnancy process just as if they would’ve for their own with the understanding that the baby that is being transferred into their uterus belongs and was conceived by another couple. Look the gestational carrier is carrying this child to life, that’s huge, it’s the most beautiful thing one human being can do for the other when the biological mother cannot provide a healthy uterus. I think it’s just the way your perceiving it, your understanding of what mother means. The motherly role begins when that baby is born and your responsible for it’s well being and everything else that goes along with it. Giving an egg to another women who can’t conceive or having a gestational carrier carry a child for another couple when the biological mother does not have a healthy uterus are all acts of selflessness when doing it for the right reason. However the word mother is one and true for the one that raises you, that’s what being a mom and dad is about.
These women who offer to be gestational carrier’s are doing it to help another couple their not doing it to be a mother to this child after it’s birth. I can understand if your talking about traditional surrogates where they also conceive the child that is completely different and I can’t really comment on how a women can get past something like that, I’m sure the emotional complexity is on another level. Although this practice is not very popular anymore, since science has evolved enough to allow the biological parents with this option of having a baby when their limitations are the uterus.
January 18th, 2011 | 10:36 am
It’s strange that we’re having to argue for calling mothers “mothers”, but to quote George Orwell:
“We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
January 18th, 2011 | 12:49 pm
Well, sorry to have to tell everyone this, but many if not most adopted kids call them their “real mother” – but only when the Mother Whose Feelings Will Be Hurt is not around to hear it, of course.
The more adoptive parents try to lay claim to more than what is theirs, the more they hurt…themselves.
Their kids are hurt too, of course, but since their goal is probably to be loved and respected, then objectifying the kid’s real mother is counterproductive.
Kids are capable of loving as many relatives as they’ve got. If there were truly a way for children to be raised in a situation where birth mother and adoptive mother could co-exist, the child could and would love both of them. But such a situation presents problems, because if the birth mother were present, the adoptive mother’s role as mother could have a legitimacy crisis.
Adopted kids know when their parents have insecurities – whether the parents know it themselves or not. Even very young adopted kids can and do show signs of great protectiveness when discussing their parents – who must be protected from certain feelings and even certain realities, because they, the supposed grown-ups, “couldn’t handle it”.
Adopted parents flatter themselves when they expect they can make the kid’s biological mother go away simply by building a taboo around discussing her.
Children can easily love both a birth mother and an adopted mother, but not if the adopted mother sets up a conflict that feels and looks a lot like competition. And that is precisely what an adopted mother does when she begrudges the birth mother the child’s affection.
January 18th, 2011 | 12:50 pm
Oh sorry for my prior comment, I didn’t realize “gestational carrier” referred to surrogacy, I thought they were talking about adoption, and I was REALLY horrified by that.
January 18th, 2011 | 2:16 pm
Chris Taus -
You have made your break from the Holy Mother Church. Don’t claim to be a Catholic until you’re back in communion with her. I take a lot of offense at someone like you, who puts the world ahead of God and the Church, claiming to be Catholic. Admit to being what you are, and don’t hide behind the Church to make your self-righteous claims.
God gave every single human being on this earth 100% dignity and 100% worth. To turn children into merchandise is spitting on the dignity that God gave them. Turning us women into wombs to be “gestational carriers” is spitting on the dignity God gave us. He is, and the Church is, opposed to surrogacy. As am I and all other faithful Catholics.
And actually, we *do* have to subscribe to everything that our chosen faith says we do, or else we *aren’t* Catholic. It’s part and parcel of the definition of Catholicism. Cafeteria Catholics only *think* they’re Catholics. Like Keith and Nicole. And some posters on this web page.
And I’m going to shut up from here on in. I suggest, for Wesley’s sake, that both of us do.
JB -
I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you and your ex had to go through that trouble. I also agree with you completely on your POV, and I’m very glad to have a brother Christian on this board.
Again, shutting up out of respect for Wesley, now that I’m done ranting.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 18th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Let’s not get into who is and isn’t a good Catholic here. Thanks.
January 18th, 2011 | 2:41 pm
Wesley -
Sorry, a little over-sensitive about this subject. As I said, dropping the topic. :)
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 18th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Tabs: Been there. Done that. Absolvo.
January 18th, 2011 | 7:27 pm
Blake-
your characterization of how adopted people feel is inaccurate, at least in my experience. I do not consider my biological mother to be my “real” mother. My “real” mother is the woman who raised and loves me, not the woman who merely carried me in her womb for nine months. That being said, I respect my birth mother and wish her well. That’s why the phrase “biological parent” is used-it establishes that the child’s relationship with his or her adoptive parent is primary but still acknowledges the identity of the birth parent.
January 18th, 2011 | 9:47 pm
Unfortunately, in my country, Spain to the value of intrauterine life of a child has been devalued in the last 25 years so tragic. However one thing I can say with pride in Spain and most European countries surrogacy is strictly prohibited, so it is logical: if we prohibit the payment for organ donation and blood donation more reason we’ll do the sale of a baby. Surrogates are a way for the sale of babies and also an exploitation of women’s reproductive functions for the benefit of wealthy couples. A baby is a gift not an object of consumption.
January 18th, 2011 | 9:57 pm
“The tot is in the pot” – Brave New World, Huxley
January 19th, 2011 | 11:15 am
As I read the comments I see one facet of this situation unmentioned: this babe is the genetic offspring of Kidman & Urban.
Just one more aspect to muddy the waters legally & morally.
Crike!
January 21st, 2011 | 9:14 pm
It is dehumanizing, and I want to see this sort of practice ended, but in the United States they usually have surrogates carrying fertilized eggs that are not their own. I have heard that Kidman used her egg and Urban used his sperm, did the IVF thing and implanted the zygote into the surrogate they hired. That would make her not the baby’s mother.
What’s interesting to me aside from the sexist and dehumanizing language used for those whose reproductive capacities are exploited, is we’re seeing a whole generation of kids brought into the world who were hearing what they thought were their mothers’ voices in utero, except they’re not related to those women at all. I wonder what, if anything, that’s going to do to these kids on a primal level. They’re going to wind up being traumatized on a very basic level just as kids are who are trafficked in infant adoption. But in this case they’re being taken away from strangers to be raised by their biological parents. That’s got to be the ultimate mindf?!k.
Zoe Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
I think your overexagerating this. We all know that a baby can recognize the voice of the uterus it’s in, however a bond is not established until after it’s birth and takes at least a couple of months. The baby bonds with the person that nurtures it outside of the womb, it needs to establish your trust. The baby will have no trouble establishing a bond with their biological mother and father despite the fact that a gestational carrier birthed him or her. Your making it sound like the biological parents are adoptive parents and there simply not. The child derived from the egg and sperm of the biological parents which means the baby is an extension of it’s biological mother and father. The biological parents will take the baby home right after it’s birth and will bond with it’s actual mommy and daddy just as if the biological mother would have carried it herself. I’m sure when these children grow up to understand what their biological mother had to give up in order to ensure that they would develop normally to term, I don’t think they would be emotionally distraut knowing that their biological mother had to him/her in another uterus for the remaining 38 weeks of gestation. You seem to forget that the first week was with it’s mother and the next week was in the lab. Would it have made a difference if the baby was born at 6 months and remained in the incubator for te remaining 3 months. I’m definately not discredeting the gestational carrier, the birthing process is exactly the same as if they carried their own, with the big difference of being that they did not conceive the child. It sounds like your discrediting the biological mothers that have to go through many cycles of IVF to produce viable embryos which is just as emotionally, phyisically draining if not more depending on how many rounds you’ve done. I think we live in a world where we have access to educate our selves on issues before we start making opinion. Don’t judge anyone on their methods of bringing a child into this world especially when you’ve never been through something so emotionally challenging as infertility. To simply things for you here’s the breakdown: The egg doner is the biological mother, the gestational carrier is the one who carries the other couples baby. The mother who earns her right to be called the mother is the one who raises the child it’s that simple. In other words the gestational carrier is not mother because she is not the biological mother nor did she enter this agreement to raise the child.
If you were a women without eggs and needed to adopt another womens eggs and culture it with your husbands sperm and the intention was that you would carry this baby and birth it and raise it then you would be considered it’s natural mother.
The gestational carrier is entering this agreement to help the biological mother by carrying the biological mothers baby and giving it back to her to raise. She’s simply lending her uterus to the biological mother’s baby to develope to term.
With respect to what people think of gestational carriers, well their incredible women who have surrendered their bodies to help another couple in bringing or uniting the baby with it’s actual parents. I wish people in this world could be more like this women who are obviously generous, giving and loving. That is an act that most of us won’t do, because it’s to much of an inconvenience and a sacrifice to make to help someone else. These women are true champions and god bless them. They take on the responsiblity to carrying another couples child to life and theirs no words to describe the beautiful thing they are doing not only for the parents but for the child. This women “gestational surrogate/carrier is uniting and actual family by bringing the biological mother, biological father and biological baby together. I think of a gestational carrier more as a selfless hero.
Zoe Reply:
March 13th, 2011 at 11:11 am
Where do you get your info from? I think you should speak with a doctor regarding the actual connection the child has with the carrier in the utero. The baby does recognize her voice and others around. However the bond does not begins until after a couple of months outside of the utero. In otherwords if the baby was adopted at birth or given to it’s biological parents the child would still bond just the same with it’s actual parents even though another women carried him/her. It takes at least a couple months for the baby to establish trust and recognize that the person who is nurturing him or her day in and day out and makes him/her feel secure and is always their to respond when he/she is hungry, tired not feeling well that is the person or persons the baby will bond with first. The baby will not be traumatized the way you’ve put at all. I think your trying to create a situation based on your personal beliefs which is fine, but don’t try to pass it off as factual because it’s not. I know several people that have been adopted from birth and consider their adoptive parents as their only parents because they are the ones that raised them and shaped who they are. As far as biological parents using a gestational carrier because the mother’s uterus isn’t functioning properly well theirs really no concern of who the mother is because based on definition she meets the criteria of natural mother. If she is the genetic mom and raising her own baby then she’s considered the natural mother and the state will also acknowledge her as the only mother because once the genetic testing is done and is shown that she in fact is the biological mother and intends to raise her child then she is named the birth mother as well. An adoptive mother however would not have that option, she would be considered the childs legal mother but would not be considered the child’s natural mother. So in that case you would tell your child that he or she has a birth mother however you are the mother that has raised him/her and the child will most likely feel that the mother that raised him is the only mother he/or she would ever really acknowledge.
January 21st, 2011 | 9:16 pm
Safepres: You’re right, that was “merely” carrying you in a womb for nine months. You don’t want to be *alive* or anything.
If your first mother had other children do you consider them your real half-siblings or just “birth siblings”? What’s your criteria? How about your natural grandparents? Are they just nobody?
What a world we live in, where women who risk their lives and health to bring children into this world are then asked to “earn” their right to be considered mothers.
Zoe Reply:
March 13th, 2011 at 10:54 am
As far as siblings are considered I really don’t know what the confusion is. The gestational carrier has no genetic relationship with the child so if she has other children they are no siblings. Just because they shared the same womb does not make them siblings, what makes them biological siblings is when the mother provides the eggs for each child and so from a geneology perspective if your looking for uncles, aunts brothers or sisters it’s traced from your DNA. Since the gestational carrier did not provide her egg in other words did not conceive the child the DNA of the child will be an exact match of the biological mother. Any children that the biological mother has will be siblings with that child and any grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins from the biological mother’s side will have a bilogical relationship. Therefore since the intention is that the biological mother raise her child then any genetic relatives will be involved in that child’s life as if she carried it herself.
January 23rd, 2011 | 4:48 pm
Dana,
From where I sit safepres already answered your question: “That’s why the phrase “biological parent” is used-it establishes that the child’s relationship with his or her adoptive parent is primary but still acknowledges the identity of the birth parent.”
I have to say I find it offensive to the whole institution of family to reduce the meaning to simply biological function. Being a part of a family requires more than simply biological lineage. That is, of course, part of it but comes nowhere near to what it means to be family.
I am grateful to my birth mother for allowing me a chance at life (since it was her choice to deny me this). However, if I were forced to make a choice in future (for whatever reason) between my birth mother and my adopted mother/father – or between my biological (be it half or wholly so) siblings and my adopted brother for that matter – there would be no contest.
So my biological family members aren’t considered ‘nobody’ nor do I consider them to be just ‘anybody’ (after all, they are the reason I exist in the first place and for that I am forever thankful) but my duty, loyalty and love remains heavily devoted to those that raised, love, and cherish me beyond reason.
Relating this to surrogacy, I think the whole ‘overcome nature to create a child at will’ is part of the misguided notion that the first principle of the family is embedded entirely in biological lineage. Reproduction in and of itself, yes; not family.
February 2nd, 2011 | 12:19 pm
I suggest to those who have not suffered the pain and heartache of infertility and loss of a pregnancy to thank God. Until you walk in those shoe think twice before you speak so harshly. An angel came into my life and together with Gods blessing gave me my son. The carrier was a giving loving person who did this because she saw it has a loving beautiful thing to do for someone. Adoption was not an option for us. My husband and I were blessed by an angel sent by God ….. It happened because He wanted to happen. Be kind
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 2nd, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Nancy: Yes, when we get what we want, it is God’s will.
The point of the blog post is the objectification of the “angels.” By the way, does their pain that many of the gestational units, let’s just go the whole way, will experience from having to give up the children they gestated matter a whit, or only the pain of couples who can’t conceive? Not judging, just asking.
February 2nd, 2011 | 1:58 pm
The wonderful woman who did this was not a unit.She is and will be friend forever. She know what being a carrier was going to entailed . You obviously have not done enough inquiry into why and how such a decision is made. You are the objectifying and belittling what this peocess involves.
I did also accept it as God will when I lost two children.
Zoe Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
I feel bad for what you have gone through. I think people are ignorant when it comes to infertility they have no idea what couples acutally go through. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a gestational carrier carry your child. The baby is an extension of you and your wife. I’m not sure what your situtation is but many women can conceive via IVF but can’t carry to term. I’m sorry, if my baby required a healthy uterus to get here, then as the child’s mother I will do the responsible thing and find a means of getting my baby here safely. So if I was able to find a gestational carrier who was willing to help me then I would be extremely greatful and appreciative of her humanity. It’s the same thing as giving an organ, if your wife needed a kidney and her sister gave her that in order to live it would be looked at as the same thing. In this case if your baby needs a uterus and another women lends you hers then obviously you’d be greatful and feel endebted to her but that does not make her the mother. The actual mother is the biological mother who raises it. You earn your right to be called mother when you raise the child and are solely responsible for his or her well being for the rest of your life regardless of blood line. However, if you can have your own baby there is nothing wrong in getting that assistance so that you could pass on your blood line.
March 12th, 2011 | 4:04 pm
I’ve read all these comments above and now it’s time for someone to enlighten you. You people have no idea what an infertile couple goes through to conceive their own biological child. Their are so many that are able to have a biological child but cannot carry for medical reasons or for the baby’s safety. If a couple can have their own biological child and require an organ in this case a uterus and another women whether it be a family member or someone you had to find else where to compensate for her to carry your child safely to term why should that bother anyone. If you needed a kidney and you had to pay for it, or someone like a sister offered hers to you to keep you alive would you look at that as being bad. You guys are so ignorant. As far as who the mother is that should be clear, the biolgoical mother who agreed to put her baby in the gestational carrier’s uterus with every intention of taking her baby back and raising it is the mother and not the gestational carrier. The gestational carrier is obviously a very special person for sacrifising her body to help another couple but that does not make her the mother of the baby. You don’t have to give birth to a baby to be a mother, motherhood is about raising a child, that is when the motherly role begins. Whether a women decides to adopt or have a gestational carrier carry her baby, the mother is the one who raises, loves and nurtures that baby for the rest of their lives. I don’t see why you guys get offended when people refer to the surrogate as the gestational carrier, all that means is birth carrier. The intention from the very begining was that she agreed and offered to carry someone elses child and once that was achieved would give back the child that was transfered into her uterus 38 weeks ago. She did not conveive the baby the bioloical parents did. Since the biological parents agreed to this arrangement, the whole point of this is that the biological parents raise their own baby. Their is nothing wrong with that, they just needed some assistance and an amazing offered just that. It’s like giving a kidney, a person would donate a kidney to another to save his life. Well the gestational carrier is lending her uterus to give life to someone elses child. As far as God’s concerned, if he blessed it you will have it. Were all gods children and that is something god would do, is sacrfice to give to others. Every blessing comes from him, and if some couples require this help from another women then so be it, if God wants you to have it, he will grant you this. If my sister needed a uterus for her baby I would lend it to her, and I would not consider my self as the mother because I’m not regardless of the fact that I would have given birth to it. The baby is an extension of my sister and her husband, my role is to feed the baby so it can develope to term. People worry how the child would feel, well If I had a mother that went to such great lenghts to bring me into this world and sacrificed her own feelings of carrying me and let me be transfered into another womb that would provide me with a normal chance of developing properly well, I think I would say, thanks mom for loving me enough to do that and thanks Aunt for helping my parents and me.
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