Choosing Surrogacy and Remaining Child-Free: Reflections on Two Recent Stories about Reproductive Choice

Last week, late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon announced the birth of his daughter, Winnie, via a surrogate. Fallon reports struggling with infertility as a couple for 5 years, and is (understandably) over the moon for his daughter: “…if there’s anyone out there who is trying and they’re just losing hope … just hang in there,” Fallon said. “It’s all worth it.”

Source: Splash News

Source: Splash News

The other major story about parenting is Lauren Sandler’s cover story in the August 12 issue of TIME magazine about the increasing number of couples who have chosen not to become parents – or, in the words of one woman quoted in the story, to remain “child free.” Sandler cites a 2010 Pew research study that notes that the rate of women who have never had a child has risen to 1 in 5, up from 1 in 10 in 1970.

Photo-Illustration by Randal Ford For TIME

Photo-Illustration by Randal Ford For TIME


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Both of these stories should be lauded for bringing issues of reproduction and choice to the national conversation. Despite the frequency of infertility, many couples, and women in particular, feel alone in their struggle, and Fallon’s public disclosure about their difficulties may offer solidarity with and for these women. And by offering a cover story on women who have chosen not to raise children, Sandler’s story validates an often neglected topic.

Yet in both cases, important details are omitted. News commentators have acknowledged that surrogacy is a “complicated” process, but “complicated” hardly scratches the surface of the issue. Laws regarding surrogacy contracts vary from state to state, ranging from barring the practice entirely to endorsing it via state statute (and everything in between). Importantly, there are significant ethical questions raised about the practice of surrogacy: some argue that contract pregnancy exploits women by commodifying the act of gestation — paying someone to carry a baby to term (Krimmel, H T. “The case against surrogate parenting.” The Hastings Center report 13.5 (1983):35-39.). Others have argued that these arrangements in fact empower women by recognizing the “socially useful enterprise” that is gestation (Purdy, Laura M. “Surrogate mothering: exploitation or empowerment?.” Bioethics 3.1 (1989):18-34.). Additionally, as with many assisted reproductive technologies, surrogacy is only available to those who have the social and economic means to enter into such arrangements, and as a result this method of childbearing is limited to the “haves” among us.

Fallon’s public jubilation about his daughter is considered natural and appropriate; whereas the option to remain child free in a decidedly pronatalist culture still remains a curiosity. 38% of the people surveyed in a 2009 Pew Research Center poll thought that the increasing number of women choosing not to have children was “bad for society,” and although the most educated women surveyed were those least likely to have a child, the proportion of those with advanced and professional degrees remaining childless dropped from 31% in 1994 to 24% in 2008. And once those women become mothers, traditional gender roles still remain prevalent in the American psyche: a 2011 survey revealed that only 16% of respondents thought it was ideal for a young child to have a mother (note – not parent) who works full time, with 42% agreeing that a mother who works part-time would be perfect. Interestingly, one of the criticisms of Sandler’s article was that men were largely absent from the story, not in terms of procreative partners but rather as social commentators. As Amanda Marcott commented, until men also see themselves as complete beings without having to be a father, we won’t know whether or not gender roles are truly liberated from tradition. It is this liberation from tradition that will enable us to celebrate any reproductive choice, from surrogacy to remaining child-free, as one that is authentic and enduring.

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Rethinking Sex Selection: A Feminist Critique

This commentary was initially posted on August 13, 2013 on the Impact Ethics blog and is reposted here with permission of the author. Visit impactethics.ca

Alana Cattapan argues the harm done to women through sex selection is sufficient reason to continue the prohibition.

In a recent report on “Eugenics and the Ethics of Selective Reproduction,” published in July 2013, Stephen Wilkinson and Eve Garrard step into much-contested terrain, challenging orthodoxies of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). In their essay on sex selection—which caught the attention of media outlets throughout the United Kingdom (herehere & here) —the authors argue that there is no ethical justification for the UK prohibition on sex selection using PGD.

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Artificial Meat

Peter Singer writes about “the world’s first cruelty-free hamburger.”

Samples of in vitro meat, grown in a laboratory at the University of Maastricht Photograph: Francois Lenoir / Reuters/REUTERS

Samples of in vitro meat, grown in a laboratory at the University of Maastricht Photograph: Francois Lenoir / Reuters/REUTERS


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Here is a bit more background about the science from the New York Times.

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Just Because It’s Monday: Two Stories That Will Not Make Your Day

If you are looking to be inspired or uplifted by today’s post….Well, let’s just say these two stories might not be what you are seeking.  Instead of offering an analysis, I will just say this:

With respect to the twenty-six cent fiasco:  While this might be explained away as an “administrative error”, or a “policy decision,” or whatever other kind of excuse-making by the medical insurers (and their political supporters) in the United States, it nevertheless stands as nothing less than a  crime perpetrated  in slow motion, in bright daylight, on paper.  And as a nation that bears witness to it, and millions of other death-by-insurance disasters, Americans  are out of excuses.  The politicians currently threatening to shut down the government rather than allow the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to be fully enacted have only the bogey-man of creeping socialism and “death panels” to peddle — and their audiences ought not be buying.  For those who are not yet certain which way to lean, it is long past time to choose sides.  I must turn to Hannah Arendt yet again, who reminds us that “[t]he sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

But the consumption of this medicament should only be done according to the physician consultation to ensure the protected and safe way to manufacture the medicine for ED The genuine sildenafil citrate was not affordable, order cialis from india thus, most of the ED patients were not able to communicate effectively. Some of the problems that one might face for best levitra price Read Full Article the habit are: The inability to perform sexual lovemaking Erectile dysfunction Back pain Anxiety Discomfort Blurred vision etc. All psychological disorders, including psychotic disorders reflect viagra generic discount imbalances of the three biological humors. Therefore, you must have to keep fait on the available scopes and above all on you also. online cialis With respect to Russian anti-gay hysteria:  I am not sure what to say here that is not obvious, or that has not already been said by others.  As a native of Russia, I am distressed, embarrassed, horrified — but not surprised.  The lack of democratic history, the general puritanical leanings of the inheritors of several generations of Soviet sexual, social, and political rigidity, combined with a decided rightward drift of the increasingly totalitarian government make for a nation that wears its hatreds on its sleeve.  The fact that it is members of LGBT communities who are on the receiving end of official Two Minutes Hate, or, really at this point Hate Week, is exactly what it appears to be:  a deliberate and paranoid grasping of a sociopolitically floundering nation for what it knows best — official national villains and moral aliens, ready-made to “other” and expel.  What makes the Dmitri Kisilev story particularly repulsive and frightening, however, is his unambiguous essentializing of certain kinds of human beings as physiologically, fundamentally defective:  not just their sexual preferences and behaviors, but their very bodies themselves.  This Deputy General Director of the Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR)  (since 2008) has said that “I think that just imposing fines on gays for homosexual propaganda among teenagers is not enough.”  [Gay people]  “should be banned from donating blood, sperm….their hearts, in case of the automobile accident, should be buried in the ground or burned as unsuitable for the continuation of life.”  Gay people, Kisilev thus insists, ought to be effectively excluded from not just the rights of citizenship, but from the shared physical and moral universe of human beings.  Their very organs, their blood, are not fit for human use.  And he says this openly, on “Vesti,” which is one of Russia’s most popular news shows.  And gets applause.

What is happening politically in Russia right now is a general disaster in the making.  What is happening to the Russian LGBT communities right now is a specific, growing, and imminent catastrophe that requires immediate and decisive response from the world community.  And from the community of bioethicists, broadly construed.  So, fellow bioethicists:  Thoughts?  Ideas?  Comments?  Please share.  We have seen this before.  We probably do not have much time.

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Zero-Sum Game? A Consideration Of Dependency Workers and Dependent Persons

Image: Carol Simpson
Image Credit: Carol Simpson

Recently, Craig Klugman wrote a thought-provoking blog entry over at bioethics.net on long-term care options for elderly persons.  While humane ones do exist that are designed for human flourishing, such as a new chain of purpose-designed communities where elderly folks have access to developing new skills in the visual and performing arts, these are often very expensive.

More often, facilities which provide in-patient nursing care still significantly “warehouse” their residents, providing medical care but treating the elderly as people waiting for death rather than persons who can still grow and learn and contribute. National Public Radio has an ongoing investigative news series called “Home or Nursing Home: America’s Empty Promise to Give the Elderly and Disabled A Choice.” In that series, NPR reporters chronicle many of the same kinds of difficulties Klugman discusses in his blog entry.  Long-term care facilities have notoriously high staff turnover rates, in part due to difficult working conditions but also due to low pay.  In-home careworkers are similarly poorly paid. 90% of these direct care workers are women, and earn an average of approximately $17,000/year. This is due in part to the fact that the federal law governing wage and overtime protections, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), explicitly does not cover home care workers. Even facility-based care workers receive very little pay.

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More on the Burka Avenger

Pakistani orphans watch an early screening of the first episode of the animate Burka Avenger Series, at an orphanage on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan on March 25, 2013. (Muhammed Muheisen/AP)

Pakistani orphans watch an early screening Fact: Men can have more than one orgasm without losing their erections but this is more common in younger men and are usually related to the excessive excitability or uncontrolled control of the cortical and http://greyandgrey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Kaplan.pdf levitra 40 mg spinal nerve centers, and the causes of premature ejaculation can also be treated using the device. In the case of female infertility, since the causes of ED are very common so, it can replace the effects created cialis without prescription by old age in the human body, hindering the circulation of blood and also a disorder across the whole body. This is the main point where kamagra starts working from. levitra cialis The powerful herb greyandgrey.com get viagra cheap of this treatment for leucorrhoea helps relieve vaginal discharge and menstrual problems. of the first episode of the animate Burka Avenger Series, at an orphanage on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan on March 25, 2013. (Muhammed Muheisen/AP)

The Ridiculous Burka Avenger Backlash
“Faiza S. Khan on why we should be praising the Pakistani cartoon superhero, not criticizing her clothing choices.”

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Suboptimal Breast-Feeding

In his July 11, 2014 Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristoff quotes The Lancet’s most recent nutritional survey as indicating that 804,000 children die annually from “suboptimal breast-feeding,” more than the WHO’s estimate of deaths from malaria.  Kristoff recounts taking a dying infant and its “teenage” mother to a hospital in Mopti, Mali.  After the doctor “repositioned [the mother’s] arm” and “helped the infant to latch on to her breast,” Kristoff reports, the “baby came alive.” The doctor, Amidou Traoré, states, “The mother doesn’t know how to breast-feed properly . . . We see lots of cases of child mortality like this.”  Later, Kristoff asks Shawn Baker, a public health expert, where he would invest a billion dollars if he had it. Baker replies, “To me, the next big win in saving kids’ lives is breast-feeding promotion. It’s absolutely unacceptable that more than 800,00 kids are dying annually of suboptimal breast-feeding.”

Image credit: New York Times

Image credit: Ben Solomon New York Times


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As Kristoff notes, “predatory marketing by formula manufacturers” may be partly to blame, but the research he quotes suggests more intimate trauma. Even a young unprepared girl can figure out how to put her baby to her breast without the tutelage of a doctor and the World Health Organization. Women in Mali and elsewhere fed their babies long before the intervention of modern medicine.  Where are the mothers and midwives who would pass on their knowledge? Why does so young and unprepared a girl have this infant? Where is her village? Why is she all alone and dependent on the random kindness of a traveling Westerner? If this research and testimony is reliable, what physical and social traumas have caused this alienation from maternal practices and why aren’t these men focused on that violence, rather than reducing the problem to the absurd idea that a woman can’t figure out how to hold her baby without a man’s help?

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“Surrogacy” and Parental Licensing

Christine Overall insists that the well-being of children born of “surrogacy” arrangements should be of paramount importance and, most certainly, should take precedence over the wants of prospective parents. This commentary was initially posted on July 18, 2013 on the Impact Ethics blog and is reposted here with permission of the author. Visit impactethics.ca

“Surrogacy” is not illegal in Canada; paying or offering payment to a “surrogate” mother is. According to Section 6 (1) of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHCR Act), “No person shall pay consideration to a female person to be a surrogate mother, offer to pay such consideration or advertise that it will be paid.” This prohibition notwithstanding, the plan is to permit reimbursement for legitimate (receipted) expenses. Section 12 (1) of the AHR Act stipulates, “No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations, … (c) reimburse a surrogate mother for an expenditure incurred by her in relation to her surrogacy.” As the relevant regulations have not been crafted, this exception to the legal prohibition is not yet in force. Meanwhile, there are many media reports of cases of paid and altruistic “surrogacy” in Canada (click here for more information).

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Burqua Avenger

BURQUA AVENGER

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Image Credit: NYTimes

Image Credit: NYTimes

From the New York Times: “Subverting a traditional symbol of segregation and oppression or reinforcing it?”

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FAB in Mexico

A message from FAB Co-Coordinator Jackie Leach Scully:

Since 1996 the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB) has held a biannual World Congress, and next year sees us gathering in Mexico City from 22-24 June 2014. This runs immediately before the World Congress on Bioethics taking place in the same location from 25-28 June 2014.

Mexico City

These are (forgive the predictable but irresistible pun) FABulous occasions! Feminist bioethicists from all over the world meet to bring their varied perspectives and priorities to challenging topics in bioethics. From my own experience I can say that FAB Congresses are marked by an atmosphere of encouragement and inquiry, by their friendliness and lack of hierarchy, and by being particularly welcoming to early career researchers.
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FAB Co-coordinator Hilde Lindemann and I are chairing the Congress planning committee, and we warmly invite you to submit proposals for papers and panels. More information on how to submit proposals can be found here: http://www.fabnet.org/congress_and_iab.html .The Congress theme is Health Care Ethics: Local, Global, Universal but submissions on any topic in feminist bioethics are welcome too.

FAB membership includes a subscription to the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (IJFAB)

We look forward to meeting you in Mexico City!

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FAB in Mexico

A message from FAB Co-Coordinator Jackie Leach Scully:

Since 1996 the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB) has held a biannual World Congress, and next year sees us gathering in Mexico City from 22-24 June 2014. This runs immediately before the World Congress on Bioethics taking place in the same location from 25-28 June 2014.

Mexico City

These are (forgive the predictable but irresistible pun) FABulous occasions! Feminist bioethicists from all over the world meet to bring their varied perspectives and priorities to challenging topics in bioethics. From my own experience I can say that FAB Congresses are marked by an atmosphere of encouragement and inquiry, by their friendliness and lack of hierarchy, and by being particularly welcoming to early career researchers.
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FAB Co-coordinator Hilde Lindemann and I are chairing the Congress planning committee, and we warmly invite you to submit proposals for papers and panels. More information on how to submit proposals can be found here: http://www.fabnet.org/congress_and_iab.html .The Congress theme is Health Care Ethics: Local, Global, Universal but submissions on any topic in feminist bioethics are welcome too.

FAB membership includes a subscription to the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (IJFAB)

We look forward to meeting you in Mexico City!

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“We are Egg Donors”

This commentary was initially posted on July 11, 2013 on the Impact Ethics blog and is reposted here with permission of the author. Visit impactethics.ca

Claire Burns, Raquel Cool and Sierra Falter co-founded We Are Egg Donors, the world’s first self-advocacy group for egg donors, run by egg donors. Here, Claire tells her story and shares her opinions about the egg trade in Canada.

I sold my eggs in 2004, but started the process in 2003. I was 21 years old at the time. At first, I was able to talk openly with the clinic staff about compensation. But, when the Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) Act was passed in early 2004, I was told that I could no longer speak about money with my liaisons at the clinic – they could get fired for even discussing it.

I ended up being paid under the table. A friend of mine met the intended recipient in the lobby of the clinic while I was upstairs having the eggs extracted. As arranged – like some espionage film or blind date – my friend wore a blue raincoat, the other woman had a red umbrella. As I was watching my eggs being sucked out of me on a TV monitor hanging above my head, my friend was handed a manila envelope with $4000 cash in 20 dollar bills. Thankfully, I suppose, there was some form of honour system in place. I sold her my eggs and she did indeed pay, but what recourse would I have had if she hadn’t paid?

While the AHR Act makes it illegal to purchase eggs, financial transactions like the one I was involved with do occur in Canada – they just happen in a clandestine way. In fact, I would argue that the AHR Act has contributed to the creation of a black market where both egg providers and recipients are at risk of being taken advantage of – both at home and abroad.

Canada is different from the United States where there are egg brokerages available for buyers and sellers. I didn’t have this experience – I communicated directly with the buyer via email (“sweetbabydreams21”) and (at least initially) with the clinic. Canadians are now being wooed to travel to the US to sell their eggs. A few weeks ago, a Toronto woman flying to Southern California to sell her eggs asked us what she should say to the border guards if asked about the purpose of her trip. She wanted to know the legal ramifications of selling her eggs across the border. Another Canadian woman had extreme adverse effects from the drugs she was taking. She spoke to the American broker about wanting to stop the process. The broker threatened that if she stopped she’d get no money. I find it troubling that the Canadian government is turning a blind eye to the fact that Canadian women are being medically and emotionally compromised in another country. Where is the accountability?
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The fertility industry in Canada is mostly privatized. The doctors are paid, the nurses are paid, the other clinic staff are paid, and the pharmaceutical companies are paid.  The prospective parents are paying. Why, in this very monetized industry, should the woman who provides the eggs – the person who supplies the commodity without which the doctors, nurses and others could not provide the service for which they are paid – do this for free, especially when she is the one to bear any potential health consequences.

In my case, I didn’t react adversely to the drugs and had no complications post extraction. As for any long-term health effects, no one has ever checked up on me. I mean, honestly, is lupron even legal? About a year ago, I tried for a year-and-a-half to get pregnant and absolutely nothing took. I am scared that maybe my egg donation has contributed to me possibly being infertile.

Don’t get me wrong, I was a more-than-willing participant in the egg trade, but if I had known then what I know now – in terms of the non-existent medical research – I would not have gotten involved in this business. To me, the lack of care for the women who provide the eggs for someone else’s fertility treatment is the single most frightening aspect of the fertility industry. The second is that, for the most part, the prospective egg providers are not made aware of the fact that there is no after-care. If more women egg providers would speak up, “we are people, not merely vendors”, then these processes would have to change to account for our health considerations.

In closing, I want to say that I am really glad I sold my eggs. Somewhere out there, there is a nine-year-old boy named Alexander who might have my eyes. That’s amazing.

The problem is not with donating or selling eggs, the problem is with the system that manages the transactions. Egg providers should be empowered. They should know their rights – the right to ask for separate legal representation, the right to informed consent, as well as the right to proper medical follow-up and responsible medical care.

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