It's Your Womb; You Should Be Able To Rent It Out If You Want
Paid surrogacy is illegal and considered a form of child trafficking in Oklahoma. Michigan women who try to rent out their wombs face five years in jail and a potential $50K in fines.
But why in the world should the government have a say in whether you rent out your womb?
Nick Gillespie and Joshua Swain write at reason:
Gestational surrogacy contracts are also against the law in New York, but State Senator Brad Hoylman (D-27th Senate Dist.) introduced a bill last year that would change that. And he has first hand experience with the issue. Hoylman and his husband had to go to California to find a surrogate to carry their daughter Silvia, who's now four."If the [bill] passes, we'll have surrogates who could actually engage with intended parents and egg donors," says Hoylman.
"We don't want to turn baby making into a commercial industry," says Jennifer Lahl, president of the Center for Bioethics and Culture.
Why not? What business is it of yours if consenting adults wish to engage in an exchange of money for a women to provide something very precious to a couple who likely cannot have a child of their own?
A friend of mine is in the process of being a surrogate mother in New Mexico through a surrogacy agency. Anonymous donor eggs, sperm from the intended father (a single man who has been prevented from adopting). There are tons of steps and contracts and paperwork involved. She says it's not about the money, but it really is. She has a lot of student loans she's struggling to pay.
I don't have a problem with someone paying another to carry a child for them. A lot of people want children and are unable to and are then also not able to adopt due to regulations. If they want a child and can provide for them, I see nothing wrong with hiring someone to do it. It's a job basically. I can see the argument being used, though, that it's preying on poor and desperate women who need money. I don't really see how that's the case considering how very involved it is including requiring psychological evaluations first before being approved (at least if it's through an agency). That would tend to weed out the impulsive and desperate. I can see there being some messy legal entanglements to sort through if things fell through as well, like the gestational carrier deciding to keep the baby or the intended parents backing out of it after pregnancy is established.
BunnyGirl at March 25, 2015 11:56 PM
Baby making IS a commercial industry... chlomid ain't free
NicoleK at March 26, 2015 12:46 AM
> A lot of people want children
> and are unable to and are then
> also not able to adopt due to
> regulations.
A lot, you say!
Of all the problems affecting family composition nowadays, regulation and policy are the least of it.
People are irresponsible shits.
A lot of them.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at March 26, 2015 1:00 AM
Another fucking thing about humans I will never get.
Ppen at March 26, 2015 1:58 AM
This "problem" and quite a few others would be greatly minimized if:
1. abortions were limited to medical reasons only,
2. adoption was promoted (esp. black kids to white parents (incl. rich urban singles), and
3. child protective services were truly that.
(Let the screaming begin.)
Bob in Texas at March 26, 2015 4:55 AM
What's so special about a womb?
If it's really "my body, my choice", why can't I sell a kidney?
Anonymous Coward at March 26, 2015 6:22 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/03/26/its_your_womb_y.html#comment-5927804">comment from Anonymous CowardWhy indeed, Anonymous Coward?
Amy Alkon at March 26, 2015 6:26 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/03/26/its_your_womb_y.html#comment-5927808">comment from Amy AlkonSally Satel on the subject of organ sales:
https://www.aei.org/publication/organs-for-sale/
Sally, who's an acquaintance who's been on my radio show, has the donated kidney of a friend of mine, Virginia Postrel.
When we were introduced by email, I joke about how we don't know each other, but I'd spent time around one of her organs.
Amy Alkon at March 26, 2015 6:28 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/03/26/its_your_womb_y.html#comment-5927809">comment from Amy AlkonAn excerpt from Sally's piece on organ sales:
Amy Alkon at March 26, 2015 6:29 AM
BunnyGirl said:
A lot of people want children and are unable to and are then also not able to adopt due to regulations.
____________________________________________
Bob said:
This "problem" and quite a few others would be greatly minimized if:
1. abortions were limited to medical reasons only,
______________________________________________
You really think so?
This is an interview with Katha Pollitt, re her new book, "Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights":
http://review.gawker.com/abortion-is-not-a-tragedy-an-interview-with-katha-poll-1646628315
Excerpt:
"Another theme of anti-abortion coverage is, give the baby up for adoption, make another woman happy. Well, if a woman wants to do that, fine. But the idea that abortion is a problem, and adoption is the solution, is really the wrong way to look at it. First of all, if we did that, there would be a surplus of babies in about five minutes. There are not as many people who want to adopt as adoption organizations want you to think there are."
Makes sense, when you consider all the older foster kids who don't get adopted. Not to mention all the incredible advances in infertility treatment in the last 30 years. Plus, IIRC, you don't have to wait more than three or so years to adopt a baby, even within the U.S. If that.
At least, I had that impression from reading Dan Savage's 1998 book "The Kid," which talks a lot about adoption procedures and laws in America. In the case of 33-year-old Savage and his younger husband, Terry Miller, they only had to wait a few months - mainly because they stood out as a couple from all the suburban, religious, heterosexual would-be adoptive couples who were pushing 40. (Melissa, the "gutter punk" 20-year-old birth mother, wanted a couple closer to her age. She also claimed they didn't seem "phony" like the suburban couples.)
lenona at March 26, 2015 7:27 AM
So, under Obamacare, who is paying for this?
I want to know, so I can get a stem-cell donor for my client's rare genetic disease.
What? If it's not your business, and not government's business in your stead promoting the general welfare, I can buy a child through this process and then do whatever I want with it.
Right?
Because life doesn't begin at conception.... Right?
Be consistent.
Radwaste at March 26, 2015 7:30 AM
Forgot to say: While I can't find it right now, I seem to remember a "60 Minutes" piece from 10 years ago or so about placing foster kids and how one agency even resorted to putting those kids on a runway, as in a fashion show. Very sad.
And ever week, I see photos of foster kids (usually school age) in the newspaper and their profiles. Can you imagine how that situation must be getting worse, every year, with the increasing improvements in fertility treatments? Who wants a kid with worse health and/or behavioral problems than usual when you can have an average-bad kid with your own DNA? (Dan Savage talked a lot about that too, in his book.)
BTW, years ago, Pollitt wrote:
"You can sell your blood, but you can't sell your kidney. In fact, you can't even donate your kidney except under the most limited circumstances, no matter how fiercely you believe that this is the way you were meant to serve your fellow man and no matter how healthy you are. The risk of coercion is simply too great, and your kidney just too irreplaceable."
lenona at March 26, 2015 7:34 AM
I too, like Radwaste, am concerned about the insurance aspects of this, especially if the surrogate mother is on Medicaid, which sets up a free rider problem.
Even with private insurance, if we equate private health insurance to auto insurance, your car insurance might cover your private use, but when you use it to set up a taxi business, it is a whole nother story.
The state of Oklahoma probably went to far in criminalizing this, but I can understand why they didn't want to get caught up in either adjudicating parental rights, or caring for a child born so damaged that the genetic parent refused to claim it.
Isab at March 26, 2015 7:56 AM
"You can sell your blood, but you can't sell your kidney. In fact, you can't even donate your kidney except under the most limited circumstances, no matter how fiercely you believe that this is the way you were meant to serve your fellow man and no matter how healthy you are. The risk of coercion is simply too great, and your kidney just too irreplaceable."
Posted by: lenona at March 26, 2015 7:34 AM
Yes, my understanding is that China has developed a lucrative business of executing criminals solely for the purpose of selling their organs for transplant.
This is probably ok, because at least they aren't Muslims, so of course, not *uniquely* evil.
Isab at March 26, 2015 8:02 AM
uhhhhhhhh - because there are many, many people in the world without the intelligence, freedom, and financial wherewithal that the average well-educated, technocrat Western libertarian takes for granted... and those people are subject to exploitation without government regulation.
(And since I'm a "primitive" Judeo-Christian Westerner - I still think those people are of equal worth, and equally deserving of freedom and dignity, than more clever and powerful folks.)
I haven't been back to this blog for a while - are you still supporting legalized prostitution after even the most extreme neo-pagan Euro-leftie has admitted that legalization has been a human disaster.... because (surprise!) most of the women who turned to the trade weren't educated western technocratic libertarians - but East Europeans and Asians whose exploitation made a mockery of navel-gazing libertarian folderol about "free agency".
Ben David at March 26, 2015 8:30 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/03/26/its_your_womb_y.html#comment-5928106">comment from Ben DavidBen, your thoughts are always tainted by your irrationality due to your belief that there's a big man in the sky who gives a shit about you and all the backward practices that go with.
Human trafficking isn't legal and shouldn't be.
Consenting adults should be able to rent their bodies if they wish.
Because it is the OPINION of some person who is -- gasp! one of those dirty, dirty lefties -- that prostitution being legalized is harmful does not mean that it is. The evidence says otherwise. Also, if it were legal, it would be easier to regulate against harms.
Mmmm, always bracing -- my morning taste of religion-inflected stupid.
Amy Alkon at March 26, 2015 9:28 AM
"Consenting adults should be able to rent their bodies if they wish."
This isn't about womb rental. This is about the rights of the live children produced from this procedure, and the right of the state of Oklahoma to adjudicate those rights, and ultimately, the tax payers of Oklahoma not being the ones picking up the tab.
BenDavid sees womb rental as immoral. I see it as bad social policy with lots of unintended consequences.
Isab at March 26, 2015 9:47 AM
"Human trafficking isn't legal and shouldn't be."
Why not, if it is consensual?
Because Amy Alkon says so with the mind numbing clarity that can only be had by those who haven't really thought it through?
Then how do you determine if it truly was consensual, since mind reading isn't an option?
Isab at March 26, 2015 9:59 AM
At least in my friend's case, her medical care is paid for by the intended parent, not private insurance or otherwise. Unless Obamacare rules changed things, a lot of insurances had clauses where treatment wouldn't be covered for surrogate pregnancy. I had a plan around 2001 that said it wouldn't pay for pregnancy if you gave the baby up for adoption within the first 6 months of life.
I don't know about other states, but here it's really hard to adopt children out of the foster care system and only a small number of kids in foster care are even able to be adopted in the first place. It's been nearly 10 years since a friend and her husband started the process. It took a year if classes and evaluations to get approved to foster and adopt by the state. They then waited another 4 years before the state finally placed a child with them, a 5-year-old boy. The adoption was finalized in January, and he turned 8 last week. They are trying to adopt his other three siblings now and the state said they may only be allowed to foster them. If theirs is a typical experience I can see why foster kids go unadopted while people turn to private agencies and surrogates instead.
NicoleK, Clomid is a $4 generic at both Walmart and Target. Femara is too.
BunnyGirl at March 26, 2015 11:07 AM
You can. And here I've been giving it away to the Red Cross.
Conan the Grammarian at March 26, 2015 11:23 AM
Yeah, but there's all the appointments that go with it.
NicoleK at March 26, 2015 11:27 AM
Any "rental" of a human body or sale of a body part, even consensual, is fraught with peril.
As Isab points out, the laws of unintended consequences could be harsh.
Legalizing the sale of body parts legalizes the financial exploitation of desperate people who may need that part one day. But that's okay, Medicaid will pay for dialysis. Right?
Legalizing prostitution legalizes pimping. And no, not all women who choose to be prostitutes are going to be empowered feminists taking charge of their own lives; meeting clean-cut clients in upscale hotels for a simple exchange of services and cash. Some will still be exploited, used, and abused - in a way that someone who chooses to be an insurance clerk or a hair braider will not.
Legalizing womb rental does not automatically mean happy children and happy couples. What happens if the sponsoring couple changes its mind? What happens if the womb landlord changes her mind? What happens if the check bounces? What happens if the kid doesn't turn out the way the sponsoring couples wants? At the end of this process is a child - one dependent upon the rest of us to have thought things through and to not have created laws and social conditions based on a half-baked whim we had one day or some vague notion of "fairness" that we haven't completely thought out.
It's your body, but the rest of us are the ones who will have to pick up the pieces when your mis-use of that body creates a mess.
Conan the Grammarian at March 26, 2015 11:37 AM
And the annoying phone calls. I swear the Red Cross trains its phone people to be annoying, to drone on even after you've agreed to what they're saying, and to speak in a monotone voice that allows no trace of humanity to seep through.
Conan the Grammarian at March 26, 2015 11:41 AM
I've tried to both sell and donate my blood before. No one wants it. I have an autoimmune blood clotting disorder, but it's not related to the blood itself. I have Antiphospholipid Syndrome. The clotting issues are caused by proteins excreted by the walls of the blood vessels and lead to clots. My blood is fine. Oh well. The bone marrow donor registry rejected me as well. I'm wondering if I'll ultimately be rejected as an irgan donor as well even though I'm signed up.
BunnyGirl at March 26, 2015 12:13 PM
Legalizing prostitution legalizes pimping.
Depends on what you mean by "pimping." It legalizes the provision of support services (procuring customers, a place to work, protection from abuse and violence by customers) in return for a fee or a percentage. It does not legalize coercion or intimidation of the prostitute by the provider of those services, and makes it easier for the prostitute who suffers such abuses to get legal protection.
Some will still be exploited, used, and abused
Indeed. There are always lines of work which are more prone than others to such outcomes. That's no reason to add abuse from the legal system to the rest of it.
Rex Little at March 26, 2015 3:12 PM
"Why not, if it is consensual? Because Amy Alkon says so with the mind numbing clarity that can only be had by those who haven't really thought it through?"
The hate is strong in this one.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 26, 2015 5:00 PM
What happens if the sponsoring couple changes its mind?
They can abandon it at a firehouse like bio parents
What happens if the womb landlord changes her mind?
She has to return the money - including the cost it took to extract and fertilize the egg
What happens if the check bounces?
She sues them and puts a lien on their property
What happens if the kid doesn't turn out the way the sponsoring couples wants?
Same thing that happens to bio parents - they deal with it
lujlp at March 26, 2015 5:27 PM
is strong in this one.
Posted by: Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 26, 2015 5:00 PM
It's derision. Blather on the internet doesn't peg my meter all the way up to hate....
I'm too old to make that kind of emotional investment.
Amy quite nastily snapped at BenDavid, calling him a religious idiot. I simply needled her back.
Isab at March 26, 2015 5:45 PM
"What happens if the kid doesn't turn out the way the sponsoring couples wants?
Same thing that happens to bio parents - they deal with it
Posted by: lujlp at March 26, 2015 5:27 PM
Michelle and I have tried to explain a little about family law to you before.
Nothing seems to have sunk in....
Isab at March 26, 2015 6:09 PM
This isn't about womb rental. This is about the rights of the live children produced from this procedure, and the right of the state of Oklahoma to adjudicate those rights, and ultimately, the tax payers of Oklahoma not being the ones picking up the tab.
Posted by: Isab at March 26, 2015 9:47 AM
That's it, largely. Child advocacy law is created on a state by state basis. Most of these states rubber stamp the birth certificate declaration of who is the mother and father, a holdover of the days when paternity laws were being developed largely through the common law (in court cases on a case-by-case basis, rather than by statute), back before DNA testing existed. So now even when there are private contracts attesting to that a child was created using eggs or sperm from others, a birth certificate can be issued that creates legal standing of parenthood in other people - meaning, the child has his or her legal relationship to the biological parents and extended family severed without so much as a hearing.
This is a marked difference from how children have their rights represented in the process of adoption.
~~~
Not all human trafficking is sex trafficking. Some of it is labor trafficking:
"In the United States, sex trafficking commonly occurs in online escort services, residential brothels, brothels disguised as massage businesses or spas, and in street prostitution. Labor trafficking has been found in domestic servitude situations, as well as sales crews, large farms, restaurants, carnivals, and more." ~Polaris, Human Trafficking
"...large farms and restaurants" - hard to avoid those.
I think we should stop treating under-age sex workers as criminals, and offer them social services. States such as California and New York have recently made that change.
As for consenting adults - let's go with that most people selling their bodies on the streets are doing so because it's their best option, not their first choice. And that this line of work is also killing them. But it's still their best option.
Removing the prohibition would lessen the risk, lessen the cost, drive down the profit margin thereby lessening an incentive for human sex-trafficking, and remove one of the reasons for interacting with/ being abused by corrupt people in law enforcement.
Between now and then, feel free to offer cash and other assistance to people who are loitering around, quietly hustling - help someone be able to afford to walk away from something that's killing them, to have the leverage to hold out and negotiate some better deal. If not, kindly get out of the way.
Michelle at March 26, 2015 6:27 PM
Right. The child turns out to have Down's Syndrome or some other issue and the sponsoring couple will just deal with it.
More likely, they'll reject the child, leaving the womb landlord with a child she doesn't want. No problem. She can just "abandon it at a firehouse."
It's just a legal issue, so no worries. Right? Forget that it's a child in the equation. It's all about what the adults want, what makes them feel good.
Conan the Grammarian at March 26, 2015 8:29 PM
If you want to be a super cheapo you can go to India and get surrogacy for $15,000. They cram a bunch of pregnant women in one room. Kinda like factory farming.
The women are happy because they get like $1,000. Seeing all those smug parents made me wanna barf. Guess people even go for the cheapest value when it comes to creating a baby.
Ppen at March 26, 2015 9:19 PM
More likely, they'll reject the child, leaving the womb landlord with a child she doesn't want.
who says she has to keep it? It aint hers
lujlp at March 26, 2015 10:51 PM
More likely, they'll reject the child, leaving the womb landlord with a child she doesn't want.
who says she has to keep it? It aint hers
Posted by: lujlp at March 26, 2015 10:51 PM
And then it becomes a ward of the state, bringing us full circle back to why Oklahoma has outlawed surrogacy to begin with.
Isab at March 27, 2015 6:40 AM
Better for surrogacy to be legal, then there are legal protections all parties involved can avail for themselves. If surrogacy is illegal, it will still happen but will be underground and with less legal protection.
Janet C at March 27, 2015 9:05 AM
why Oklahoma has outlawed surrogacy to begin with.
OK I missed that, I thought they had merely outlawed PAYING the surrogate a fee for her service, I didnt realize they had outlawed the practice in it entirety.
But given the state routinely forces parent to pay child support I fail to see why they can force any parent abandoning their child to the state to pay child support as well
lujlp at March 27, 2015 9:33 AM
They have to find the parent first.
If the parent's DNA isn't on file and the child is abandoned, good luck.
Firehouse safe abandon zones don't make the parent leave a name or a DNA sample.
Conan the Grammarian at March 27, 2015 9:38 AM
And then there's the whole "blood from a turnip" dilemna.
Conan the Grammarian at March 27, 2015 9:39 AM
I guess it's dilemma.
http://www.dilemna.info/
Conan the Grammarian at March 27, 2015 9:41 AM
I guess most missed this:
I can buy a child through this process and then do whatever I want with it.
And this is wrong: "Removing the prohibition would lessen the risk, lessen the cost, drive down the profit margin thereby lessening an incentive for human sex-trafficking, and remove one of the reasons for interacting with/ being abused by corrupt people in law enforcement."
No. When you subsidize something, you get more of it. This increase RAISES the opportunity for abuse at the same time it lowers the per-capita rate. The assertion is simply another try at the idea that if something is wrong, decriminalizing it will make it right. Nope.
Radwaste at March 28, 2015 4:31 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/03/26/its_your_womb_y.html#comment-5932269">comment from RadwasteI can buy a child through this process and then do whatever I want with it.
Well, that's just silly. Child services and law enforcement types don't care how you got the child; they enforce laws to protect children. Including adopted and foster children.
Let's not turn every nutty comment into a hysterical pronouncement of change to come, mkay?
Amy Alkon at March 28, 2015 5:51 AM
And this is wrong: "Removing the prohibition would lessen the risk, lessen the cost, drive down the profit margin thereby lessening an incentive for human sex-trafficking, and remove one of the reasons for interacting with/ being abused by corrupt people in law enforcement."
No. When you subsidize something, you get more of it. This increase RAISES the opportunity for abuse at the same time it lowers the per-capita rate. The assertion is simply another try at the idea that if something is wrong, decriminalizing it will make it right. Nope.
Posted by: Radwaste at March 28, 2015 4:31 AM
Rad, I made that comment regarding prostitution. Not prosecuting prostitutes is not the same thing as subsidizing prostitution.
Removing the prohibition against / declining to fine or prosecute for something is not the same thing as subsidizing the practice.
As for surrogacy -
Governments could opt to keep mum on surrogacy (which would not be subsidizing the practice) and simply enforce existing paternity/ maternity determination practices and adoption due process requirements.
For instance, usually, no effort is made to determine biological paternity before listing people as parents on birth certificates. The "birth" certificate is a legal fiction.
Paternity/ biological parenting questions are usually only taken up by the state/ made a legal issue if parents are fighting over rights and responsibilities, or the government wants to know who to go after for child support.
Michelle at March 28, 2015 11:08 AM
Rad, I skimmed the comments and reread your note about ACA/ Obama Care insurance. I presume that's what you were referring to when you mentioned subsidization (conflated with the comment I made regarding prostitution).
I did a basic google search on whether surrogacy is covered by health insurance (answer: rarely):
http://nbsurrogacy.com/blog/what-aspects-of-surrogacy-programs-are-covered-by-health-insurance/
Although I support a woman "renting her womb" if that's the work she chooses, I don't support surrogacy. My values would have me invest my time and money elsewhere to become a parent.
Recent understanding of gestation disrupts the illusion that a gestational carrier is a sealed container that does not make a biological contribution to the child. Surrogacy involves an exchange of biological material beyond feeding a growing being check out/ Google - Our Selves, Other Cells, By Jena Pincott:
"During pregnancy, cells sneak across the placenta in both directions. The fetus's cells enter his mother, and the mother's cells enter the fetus. A baby's cells are detectable in his mother's bloodstream as early as four weeks after conception, and a mother's cells are detectable in her fetus by week 13. [...] At the end of the pregnancy, up to 6 percent of the DNA in a pregnant woman's blood plasma comes from the fetus. After birth, the mother's fetal cell count plummets, but some stick around for the long haul. Those lingerers create their own lineages. Imagine colonies in the motherland.
Moms usually tolerate the invasion. This is why skin, organ, and bone marrow transplants between mother and child have a much higher success rate than between father and child. [...]
...fetal stem cells may act as cancer stem cells. This isn’t the only potential problem in the relationship. [...]
The maternal cells circulating in a child’s body are no more predictable. Nearly 1 in every 100 cells in a fetus comes from her mom. The population plummets to something like 1 in 100,000 after birth, but enough of a mother’s special agents are still hiding out in her baby’s tissues [...]
Maternal cells are busybodies. Some researchers think they train and shape the baby’s immune system and even decrease the risk of allergies. They’re healers too; there’s evidence that maternal stem cells can morph into, for instance, insulin-prod producing cells that proliferate and repair damaged tissue in kids with juvenile diabetes. And, like fetal cells in mothers, maternal cells in children may cause autoimmune problems.
When more than one person’s cells mingle in one individual, the effect is known as microchimerism.
Michelle at March 28, 2015 11:42 AM
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