The Exploitation Of Women Through Surrogacy

This is family policy matter program is produced by the North Carolina family policy Council of profamily research and education organization dedicated to strengthening and preserving the family and up from the studio here is John Rustin, Pres. North Carolina family policy Council, thank you for joining us this week. Profamily policy matters. It is our pleasure to have Jennifer wall with us on the show. Jennifer is founder and president of the Center for bioethics and culture network of pediatric critical care nurse Jennifer has 25 years of experience in the healthcare field. She is routinely interviewed on radio and television, including ABC, CBS, PBS and NPR, among others, in her writings have appeared in a number of publications, including the American Journal of bioethics. Jennifer has produced or directed several critically acclaimed documentaries on third-party reproduction, including exploitation anonymous Father's Day and breeders, which focuses on the harms of surrogacy were to be talking with Jennifer today about surrogacy the dangers to women and children, and while she believes it should be banned, including here in North Carolina. Jennifer, thanks so much for being with us today on family policy matters. Having well were delighted to have you know, Jennifer, for some of our listeners who may be unfamiliar with the term. Would you describe what surrogacy is, what it means and how frequently it is used in the United States, literally, a woman being hired or contracted to carry a pregnancy to term, knowing that when the child has been born. She will surrender that child to whoever the intended parent are the surrogate can either contribute her genetic material at as well as her womb or uterine or she can contribute. Her uterine we talk about different forms of surrogate and sometimes the word traditional surrogate thrown out there which means literally the biological genetic and birth mother or gestational surrogate which means she's just as this TV shows like to say the easy bake oven baking cupcakes for a night couple of different types of surrogacy but banning the woman what she delivered the child will surrender that child levers contracted for to carry the pregnancy to term. Number United on it's really hard to get a handle on that you don't track and monitor one area of medicine which is largely operating at a multi-multibillion-dollar level here in United date with little oversight and regulation hard to know more labor and delivery hospital in United date. You know who are the parent and is a child born of the contract.

We do know that the numbers are trending up other trending up because I'm more mainstream become more acceptable within our traditional faith communities the wonderful way to help people have family and now with the Supreme Court ruling unmarried. Being a much more forceful if you will. Policy ship to allow same-sex couples in this instant homosexual men become parent. Surrogacy interesting. Well Jennifer you've written the charges.

He really represents the commodification of women's bodies explain force if you will, how surrogacy reduces women to essentially commodities very clear that what the woman being paid to do or contracted to do is to use your body for nine months in a pregnancy and deliver a child and often manage my contract, which leaves the surrogate mother very exposed and at the end of the day she's being paid to deliver a product of baby episodic modification of a woman's body and file I would call that human trafficking recall that baby Craig you call that baby buying and baby selling know that's what it really happening here and you can dress it up and make it any other way other than literally the employment the hiring of a woman to produce a baby for sale, usually talk about here in terms of this contract when talking about is for the amount of money that a woman might receive four surrogacy contract. The market driven enterprise medicine, you know you don't negotiate with your doctors normally knowing when you enter into the healthcare system but the market driven think so out I'm in California Hollywood land where we have very wealthy celebrities.

No surrogate can make 20 3040 $50,000 on repeat surrogate VPs even better because you have been been too damn, you demonstrate that not only can you carry a pregnant term, but you won't change your mind and demand that you have the right and active to the child very common for surrogate to deliver twin or triplet very expensive technology, likely high failure rate was surrogate of the courage deliver multiple birth so that the consumers, the buyer will get a baby in the end up with all about you getting a baby girl at surrogate willing to carry when the triplet can even get no higher amount of money because of the red my own onerous effort on her body. No reason for the time imagined based on the potential financial benefits involved could be very tempting for some individuals to offer their bodies for this, especially women, who are struggling with finances. I know that you've argued that the practice of surrogacy really depends on the exploitation of women give some examples of how the surrogacy industry does exploit the women you don't have to go very far and deeper our tabloid magazine. The faces of surrogate mother outside United low indigent uneducated poor women of destitute poverty in India, Thailand. The call Mexico for the booming growing market here in United State military by her heavily recruited and marketed to serve God their country and another couple and help make dream come true and become a paid surrogate so you know you will never be again back to Hollywood tabloid members to the wealthy Hollywood actress offering to be a surrogate mother for her low income housekeeper. It will always be the low income women who is serving couple of affluent company affluent women want to get pregnant for nine months only to help somebody and deliver a baby at the end of the pregnancy to a low income women. It doesn't work that way, and we are na�ve and we think that wealthy women are serving the poor support serving the wealthy documentary breeders. You tell the stories of some women who have been sure just how I how they were harmed by this practice. One of the harms of surrogacy involves the drugs that are used to prepare women to be surrogates tell us a little bit about those drugs and the dangers involved with them.

Obviously happened a woman's body into becoming pregnant in a very unnatural way.

You hear the woman not know in the conjugal act will of marriage becoming pregnant. The old-fashioned way you being manipulated through powerful hormone to prepare her uterine that the pregnant mother for her own." These women do have to take hormone not only prime and prepare their uterine to accept an embryo into the world, but then they also have to stay on extended periods of hormone to actually know here that pregnancy that the embryos implanted in you coming along because it's an unnatural thing were doing here but were trying to mimic nature by inducing these hormones in our film breeders you did you know we tell the story of four different women and the women that you'll hear from in the film.

We have traditional surrogate family have gestational surrogate we had surrogate were helping family members have a child we had surrogate were helping strangers. We had started doing it for free, purely altruistic, and those that were being paid because they needed the money, and no matter which way you like. The argument all of these women regret their vision and they regret it because account rep can help compensation because of bonding and attachment to the children that they were carrying in a whole other reason. We just touched on this and that is the negative emotional effect that women suffer as a result of being surrogates tell us about the experiences which are seen with the John you introduced me and said that I was a pediatric critical care nurse we work so hard maternal child. How to connect mothers to their baby in utero. I took her nearly premature babies for many years that you know we work very hard in those instances connect mothers and children together because it is an important real necessary good on and in this area. If the reader say all that doesn't matter harmed Doug mother and we've seen over and over again that it is the wound and at the wound to mother and father I've interviewed will be called serial surrogate who picked up her postpartum depression. You know, because they go home from the hospital and they don't bring a baby call. So what do they do to fill that void. They get pregnant again because of the grief of broken one of the women in our film was born of surrogacy and she talked about broken that bond and that feeling that she was a commodity, knowing that her birth mother's over $10,000 and what that does to your serial your psyche, you will your emotional health. I've seen the larger impact of the home. What do little children in the home will learn when they know mom is not baby one little boy was at the grocery store when his mother was pregnant. You want a brother or anything overnight baby will giving it to a nice lady that can't have a child wanted the impact a little children grow up mommy keep some of their babies and mommies give some of their babies away. So were only now getting the tip of the iceberg. You will not only the impact to the mother and the child very good bereavement that the larger no social family. If you will, and other children in the home and married with the impact of the in the marriage of the third mother considering all these concerns. How is regulated in the United States or other federal laws regulating it. What's the status of the data is very much an ad hoc Ways and we do not have any federal legislative overlay in the area of the new emerging reproductive technology very unfortunate that what we have is the patchwork might the California very liberal very anything goes because the wild wild wet. Where did Elton John come by habit children with male partner shows anything literally goes out here in California we had no legislative victory three years in a row with Gov. Jindal and Gov. Christie. No pushing back on progressive liberalizing surrogacy log. The note date so it badly patchwork which encourages people to fly from one state to the next and hop around the chopper, you know the best price that they can get in hiring a woman to have her baby right unfortunate that I'm happy to meet your acquaintance so we can work together. You know right now North Carolina really doesn't have laws governing surrogate. The house surrogacy does operate is operating in North Carolina is part of under the offices of your contract on your adoption log. Though North Carolina is open to you and friendly to gestational and I would love to see you know that change in North Carolina to stop surrogacy North Carolina something that seems to becoming more and more on the radar screen as people become more aware of it is becoming more widespread. So it's definitely an issue that the policy councils are interested in and will be pursuing legislation in the future. Jennifer, you argue that simply regulating surrogacy is not the answer and that we really should ban it altogether.

What is regulation not enough, in your opinion, what are your thoughts from that standpoint. In my mind. Undermine the dignity of women hundred and undermine the dignity of the family and like women and children. So if something is undignified and wrong. Why would you regulated know we don't regulate debris. We don't regulate traffic think that we decided are no undermining the dignity of the human person. So in my mind regulation only protect the money stakeholders a great place to close and unfortunately we are just about Tom but before we leave. Jennifer will give you the opportunity to tell our listeners where they can go to learn more about this issue and about the Center for bioethics and culture network. I would drive everybody to our website www.network.org our website at all of THE valuable information and report the law, thank you so much for being with us on family policy matters today and talking about the harms of surrogacy and what we need to do here in North Carolina on this issue. We are grateful for your Tom for your insights and for your interest in my thinking on this family policy matters. Information and analysis, future of the North Carolina family policy Council join us weekly for discussion on policy issues affecting the family. If you have questions or comments, please contact 919-807-0800 or visit our website and sing family.org