Minnesota’s recent law imposing abortion extremism on the state raises questions about an additional threat to life and human dignity. It is possible that the vague wording of the law could be understood to create a “right” to gestational surrogacy in law. In gestational surrogacy, a couple or an individual commissions a child to be created in a lab, either using their own sperm and eggs or donor gametes. The embryo is then implanted in the womb of a woman who has been contracted to be the “surrogate mother,” who carries the baby to term and then relinquishes the child after birth. Under most contracts, the surrogate mother has no right to continued contact with the child she has carried.
As is typically the case with in vitro fertilization, surrogacy often involves the creation of more embryos than the couple intends to use. There are serious pro-life concerns that arise any time lives that cannot be sustained outside of the womb are created in a lab to be left to the mercy of cryogenic freezing, disposal, or “donation” to research. Additionally surrogacy often involves “selective reduction” of multiples and abortion on the basis of disability.
The surrogacy industry is a growing threat to the sanctity of human life and dignity. Fundamentally, it puts a price tag on women and children while also compromising their physical and emotional well-being.
Mother-child bonding begins in utero and once a baby is born, her mother is the one she recognizes, making her feel safe and secure. This makes separation shortly after birth a traumatic experience that can have life-long effects. Children of surrogacy often struggle later in life as they process the circumstances of their conception and many have spoken out against surrogacy as adults. Surrogate mothers suffer from this loss, as well. Many have reported severe depression and lasting regret.
Surrogacy also puts the physical health of the mother and baby at risk. Children born via surrogacy are more likely to experience preterm births, low birth weights, high blood pressure, or to be stillborn. Surrogate mothers are more likely to have high-risk pregnancies and experience complications, and are five times more likely to require a c-section birth.
One of the questions raised by Minnesota’s recently passed PRO Act, the radical law that creates a “right” to abortion for any reason at all stages of pregnancy, is whether or not it also creates a “right” to surrogacy. The law states that
Every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual's own reproductive health, including the fundamental right to use or refuse reproductive health care.
It is unclear from the law’s expansive definition of “reproductive healthcare” whether this applies to surrogacy. If it does, then this would mean that adults in Minnesota have a fundamental right to rent women’s bodies and commission children who, shortly after birth, will be separated from the only person they have ever known.
For more information on the harms of surrogacy:
· What is Wrong With Surrogacy? from The Center for Bioethics and Culture
· Surrogacy Harms from Them Before Us
· How Surrogacy Arrangements Fail Children by Seow Hon Tan
· Casualties of Surrogacy by Jennifer Lahl
