Blog 6:Families and Surrogacy

In Argentina, they have passed legislation for surrogate motherhood for heterosexual, homosexual couples, or single women who cannot have a child of their own. This is the first place in Latin America to legalize this. The practice is known as “rent-a-womb”.  The law reform is much more open to family law. It recognized same sex marriage and no fault divorce. There is a large fear of the birth mothers becoming motivated for profit. There are very little regulations in the practice in Argentina unlike most of the other countries that have legalized it. Some of the regulations of the surrogacy include the surrogate mother. The surrogate mother is not to contribute her eggs to the baby the sperm and egg must come from the couple to insure there is no dispute over parentage. The surrogate mothers are all informed of the seriousness and heaviness of the situations as well as the risks and complications.

The issue faced is that surrogacy is allowed in other places and highly regulated there as well. Parents do not want to conceive their baby in this manner so they will often go to other countries and come back once the surrogate mother gives birth to the baby. This is a social global problem because we have to recognize that some places who allow surrogacy do not allow it to single mothers or same sex couples. The results of this are detrimental to families. The cost of going to another country, paying the surrogate mother, moving back, and raising the baby is often an unobtainable idea. The issue becomes whether or not surrogacy will be legal. On one hand one country cannot prevent it but on the other hand if they try to regulate it then they have to look into single mothers, same sex marriages, ect. The social global problem here is evident. We have created this ideal that in order to live a full life one must bear and raise children. Adoption doesn’t seem optimal anymore due to costs, paperwork, and the concept that the baby is not biologically theirs. Families are affected by the inability to have children, now there is a raised eyebrow at the overwhelmingly increasing want to employ a surrogate mother rather than adopt. 

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/argentina-to-legalise-surrogate-motherhood/