Children as a commodity

Apparently, surrogate mothering has raised some questions.

Like questioning who the child's real parents are — the egg and sperm donors, or the woman who carried the child in her womb for 9 months. Like who has custody of the child at birth. Like who can even be a surrogate mother.

No one seems to be asking why this is legal in the first place.

The Senate approved a bill yesterday that establishes a legal framework for "gestational carriers," or women who have an embryo implanted within them and carry the pregnancy to term with the agreement that the child will be given to the biological parents — presumably the sperm and egg donors — upon birth.

The bill requires that surrogate mothers be at least 21 years old and pass medical and mental health tests. It also gives the biological parents immediate legal custody at birth, and mandates that the surrogate cannot "genetically contribute" to the embryo (meaning, it can't be one of the parents).

The Associated Press quoted Sen. Claire Robling, R-Jordan, saying that the bill would treat "children are products and mothers are paid incubators."

She's on to something. This is a buying and selling of one's body and of one's offspring that violates the church's teaching on the dignity of human life. First of all, the child's conception takes place in a laboratory, and not in an act of intercourse. (Check out the March 25 blog post on invitro fertilization for more on this.) Second, the child is not carried by its biological mother, leading to the question of what motherhood really is: a biological participation, or a self-giving action of a woman to a child? What happens when you remove one from the other? Third, the surrogate mother is paid, presumably, making her body something that can be bought for a price.

The House hasn't voted on this yet, but we'll see how it fares there.