Social surrogacy: should healthy and fertile people be able to use a surrogate mother?

This is a question loaded with ethical and value judgments. Healthy and fertile people use substitutes and will continue to use them where legal. For some reason, the woman or the couple does not want to go through a pregnancy and surrogacy has become an option for them.

No one can determine that this is right for them except the couple themselves with the help of their doctor or a surrogacy clinic. In some clinics, does there have to be an infertility problem for the surrogacy contract to proceed? In other clinics it is not necessary.

People who do not accept surrogacy will certainly not accept a healthy couple’s decision to have a surrogate. We have been given the technology to make these decisions. Some people are more open than others. For any surrogacy agreement, a couple has to be pretty good. We hear about celebrities hiring surrogates often, whether they’re healthy or not. It has become a choice. People will make value judgments as they see fit.

Although it takes a considerable sum of money for anyone to use a surrogate mother, some people are well enough to use a surrogate for convenience or to avoid personal health risks. This is ethically problematic for many people.

Some couples are desperate to have a child and are willing to invest large sums of money to become parents. This is a very different problem for them than it is for people who can do natural work. Put another way, it is not the same level of investment for the rich.

Many would argue that clinics that require infertility from a parent for surrogacy do so for sound ethical reasons. Should people out loud hire someone to have a child simply because they can afford it or out of convenience? What are the reasons the couple does not want to bring their own child, vanity, convenience, or a sense of entitlement?

Some might wonder if a child produced in this way would be loved to the same extent or if it is a genetic commodity. Should people have the privilege (some might even call it their right) to ask another human being to bear the burden, inconvenience, pain, and physical risk (including the risk of possible death) simply because they can afford it? for it.

The fact that some people are so desperate financially that they would take this risk or have altruistic reasons for someone else to have a child does not remove any of the ethical concerns. Those who think that having a child in this way is a sign of altruism on the part of the surrogate mother can avoid ethical dilemmas simply by giving the amount of the fee to a young woman or a couple without financial resources.

One might also wonder if clinics that do not require infertility for surrogacy have an overall profit and monetary motive that presents another ethical dilemma of its own.