July 2018 – Article 1:
(Note: While researching the April article, Surrogacy Out of Control, Georgia Right to Life determined that surrogacy in Georgia is virtually unchecked. This is the follow-up discussion of that finding).
Need money for a down payment on a house? Trying to save up to send your children to college? Looking for ways to start a small business?
Not to worry. The seven Georgia fertility centers use such enticing advertising to lure women into becoming surrogate mothers with promises of lucrative compensation of at least $35,000.
Taking a page from professional sports teams, Tomorrow’s Parents International (TPI) in Marietta, even offers a $1,000 “signing bonus.”
Other payments TPI offers include:
- Base compensation: $35,000 and up to $60,000 for repeat clients.
- Twins fee: $7,000.
- Invasive procedures: $400 to $10,000.
- IVF medications fee: $600.
- Embryo transfer: $1,250.
- C-section: $2,500.
Women who agree to be a surrogate are also compensated for a number of expenses including: lost wages, maternity clothes, travel expenses, childcare, housekeeping, medical expenses, and attorney fees.
Claiming to be a “faith-based surrogacy agency,” Family Inceptions in Norcross says being a surrogate is a “calling,” adding: “We help these selfless individuals make a real difference for those who are unable to have a baby of their own.”
Pointing to its assertion of being religious, the agency tries to assure women that they help them “overcome the criticism, allowing them to follow what they feel is God’s plan for their lives.”
Georgia is the Wild West
All of this is allowed in Georgia because there a virtually no laws or regulations governing the process. Our state is virtually the Wild West when it comes to surrogacy.
Despite such heart-tugging, positive-sounding claims, surrogacy is morally and ethically wrong. It dehumanizes God’s design for Personhood by turning women into for-hire baby factories and babies into for-sale commodities.
It also can cause physical and emotional harm to women who volunteer to take part in the process, as well as affecting the heath of children born using surrogacy.
A recent study published in the Fertility and Sterility journal compared surrogate births to natural conception.
The results showed that babies born by surrogacy, as opposed to natural child birth, were more likely to be premature and have lower birth weights.
Surrogate mothers had significantly higher obstetrical complications including: gestational diabetes, hypertension, the need for antibiotics during labor, and a cesarean section.
The Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC) lists similar problems. For women, risks include:
- Death
- Hypertension
- Gestational diabetes
- Multiple births, since several embryos are often implanted
- An increased risk of intracranial pressure
For the children, risks can be:
- Low or very low birth weight.
- An increased risk of stillbirths.
- Higher levels of adjustment problems by age seven.
- The absence of gestational connection to the mother can be problematic.
With the moral, physical, and psychological issues involved in surrogacy, its plain that the money is not worth the risks.
Surrogacy threatens the Personhood of the surrogate as well as the child(ren) that she carries, and when any human being is reduced to a commodity or an object to be used, the value and dignity of all persons is at risk.
Please share this article with any woman considering taking part in this dangerous and degrading practice.
Sources: fertstert.org; cbc-network.org; familyinceptions.com; creativefamilyconnections.com; tpi-info.com.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor