Surrogacy: Expression of Love, or Human Rights Violation?

Buzzfeed ran photos Wednesday of two gay men welcoming their new son who was born from a woman who had rented her uterus to them though not her eggs. Those came from yet another woman.

Jennifer Lahl, a campaigner against assisted reproductive technologies (ATR), and who has produced several documentaries explaining why, published a story at her Center for Bioethics and Culture Network that ATR had a very bad week.

A new study shows “a threefold higher risk of hypertension and an even higher risk of pre-eclampsia” among women who use donor eggs to conceive. Yet another study just out from the Journal of Immunology Research shows “egg donation pregnancies are associated with higher incidence of hypertension and placental pathology.” The study also showed an increased “risk of pre-eclampsia in donated sperm…”

Lahl reports a new study from the University of Copenhagen, the “first large-scale study comparing mental disorders in children born to mothers naturally and to mothers with fertility problems.”

Finally, Lahl reports on an Australian story that “really nails the corruption of medicine in exchange for profits.” The story says, “Fertility clinics operate in an industry that is capable of exploiting those desperate to have children.” Lahl agrees with the report that “To an IVF business, patients are commercial revenue units as much as people.”

There is a growing movement to slow the growth of assisted reproductive technologies, something that is completely unregulated in the United States.

Robert Oscar Lopez, who runs the blog English Manif, is a bi-sexual man raised by lesbians who is vociferous in his opposition to such technology. He calls it a human rights violation that a child may be created intentionally without being able to know his father.

Alana Newman, who was donor-conceived, calls the method of her conception “humiliating and dehumanizing.” She runs a website dedicated to telling the stories of donor conceived children who agree with her.

The two gay men featured in Buzzfeed said on Facebook that the pictures from the child’s birth show “everything Pride is about.”