SURROGACY

noun (Health and Fitness) (People and Society) The practice (also known as surrogate motherhood or surrogate mothering) in which a woman carries and bears a child for another, either from her own egg, fertilized outside the womb by the other woman's partner and then re-implanted, or from a fertilized egg from the other woman. Etymology: A specialized use of surrogacy, which formerly meant 'the office of deputy' (a surrogate being a person who stands in for another). History and Usage: The practice of surrogacy, which first took place in the US in the late seventies, was the subject of heated moral and legal debate both in the US and in the UK during the eighties. The central question concerned the ethics of an arrangement in which a woman agreed to carry and bear a child for others in return for a fee, on condition that she would hand over the baby to the couple 'employing' her after the birth. In a famous case in the US (known as the case of Baby M), the surrogate mother was reluctant to relinquish the baby after bonding with her at birth, and a court battle for custody of the child ensued. In the UK a committee chaired by Dame Mary Warnock considered the ethics of surrogacy and recommended in its report (published in July 1984) that it be made illegal. The continuing debate in the US has led to a distinction between host surrogacy (in which the fertilized egg is the product of both the 'employing' parents, and the surrogate mother is providing no more than an incubator for the embryo during gestation) and surrogacy in which the surrogate mother is biologically involved by supplying the egg for fertilization. Is surrogate mothering class exploitation? Even the gift of life can come wrapped in ethical quandaries. Life Fall 1989, p. 104 A surrogate mother...can be impregnated with his sperm artificially and she can even be impregnated by the sperm and the ovum of the infertile couple (a process known as 'host' surrogacy). Providing the surrogate mother does not have intercourse with her partner before the embryo 'takes', the infertile couple will be presented with a baby which is genetically all their own. She Aug. 1990, p. 6