All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
ABSTRACT: This article evaluates the pregnancy experiences of American women by comparing their spontaneous or non-surrogate pregnancies with their gestational surrogate pregnancies. Data were collected through structured interviews using an online video platform. In total, 96 interviews were conducted. Data revealed that a woman was more likely to have a pregnancy that was high-risk during a surrogate pregnancy than during a non-surrogate pregnancy, independent of maternal age or gravidity (OR 11.4, 3.5-36.6; p<.0001). A surrogate pregnancy had three times higher odds of resulting in a cesarean section (p<.0001) and was five times more likely to deliver at an earlier gestational age (p<.0001). Women in this study were significantly more likely to experience postpartum depression following the delivery of surrogate children than after delivering their non-surrogate children (p=.01), and overall, they
were more likely to have adverse outcomes during a surrogate pregnancy. The rate of new post-surrogacy chronic health issues for women of color was significantly higher than for women identified as white (p<.0001). We found that women’s economic disadvantage was a major contributor to the decision to proceed with surrogacy. This study confirms that health disparities exist for women with surrogate pregnancies compared to non-surrogate pregnancies, which can lead to long-term complications after a surrogate pregnancy. In terms of biomedical ethics, it raises important social, economic, and political issues related to surrogacy, all requiring further exploration. Future research will build on the present work in further helping us to understand the circumstances and consequences involved for women in surrogacy.
Source: Groundbreaking New Surrogacy Research – The Center for Bioethics & Culture Network
This should not come as a surprise. In the US people are paid to give blood. For those desperate for money this is a great incentive.
In WW2 when huge amounts of blood were collected, many recipients contracted hepatitis.
In the 1980’s many recipients, especially of Factor 8, contracted HIV.
You would expect those desperate for money yet still fertile to seriously consider surrogacy so that some rich gay men can have their right to fatherhood box ticked off. And those women would be likely to want to get the whole deal done and over with as soon as possible so all sorts of negative health outcomes could be in the offing.
The lower the SES of the surrogate is the poorer the health outcomes are likely to be due to diet, drug use, lack of medical insurance etc etc.
And whilst we recognise the damage the stolen generation resulted in, we are all for gay men having a child, as it’s their ‘right’. So you would expect some PPD to occur.
You would also expect some psychological issues with the resultant child when they ask about mum. My wife is an adopted child and despite having a good upbringing she still has abandonment issues due to her adoption. No one speaks about this really…
What allowences are there for children to eventually contact their surrogate mother?
And what are the psychological issues when the mother is but the womb and the egg and sperm are parental? Has anyone even thought about this?