NY Times article on gestational surrogacy

(If you are looking for the latest update, I just posted it...scroll down past this post.)

The NY Times ran a feature story this weekend on gestational surrogacy (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30Surrogate-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1). The author is someone who was already a writer for the Times. She was very honest in the article about what she went through before surrogacy (11 IVFs), and her thoughts and feelings during the surrogacy. I thought it was a good story to give the general public an "intro" into what gestational surrogacy is. Unfortunately the corresponding photographs featured the writer in front of her upscale house (with her baby nurse behind her) and the surrogate on a weathered porch, making it seem that the story of surrogacy is all about rich women using poor women to have babies. Granted, the writer came across as slightly snobish at times, but to put photos like that on the front page really handicapped the story from the beginning for the average reader with already preconceived notions.

When I saw that 404 people had commented on the story, I braced myself for the worst before digging in (and oh, yes, I dug in and read all 404 comments - obviously this is a story near and dear to my heart and it is an interesting opportunity to read the unbridled responses of strangers to the notion of surrogacy). I know that it is really hard for the average person to grasp infertility treatments when they haven't struggled with infertility, and to grasp surrogacy? Almost impossible. I anticipated a slew of comments about how terrible it was she didn't adopt, how she was exploiting this other woman, and how egotistical it is to want to propogate your own genes. I was exactly right. But I was shocked at the absolute disgust people expressed and some key themes that I would not have thought would stand out to so many.

I was also surprised that the overwhelming majority of people who responded felt so strongly negative about the surrogacy. I wondered if anyone we have told about surrogacy thinks like that. I certainly haven't noticed anyone even trying to cover up a negative shock about it, and I'm very observant in that way. It was hard to determine how many of them felt that way because of the pictures (which many mentioned) or because of the slightly arrogant manner in which the article was written. But even aside from these issues there were plenty of other points brought up over and over. I wish I could get all those people into a lecture hall and address their points because they (the points) are so illogical and uneducated. I will try to make myself feel better by responding to their points here and pretending they will read them (or rather hoping that they will somehow be so intrigued with the issue that they google for more information and end up here). :)

Point 1: "How dare you spend so much on this kind of venture rather than doing something good/more honorable with the money?"

I have to admit that this isn't something I would have thought would stand out to people after reading about surrogacy, but it came up over and over. How "unfair" it is that this woman had the resources to pay someone else to carry her baby - such a luxury for the uber rich - and how she should have given that money to a better cause was a constant theme in the comments. I will be the first to acknowledge that surrogacy and IVF is an expensive venture and that it is true that not everyone could afford to do it. So is taking a European vacation, buying a new car or buying a house. Would these people have been equally outraged that this (or another) woman paid for any of those other things? Of course not. Isn't financing the medical technology necessary to create a precious child a more noble use of funds? What if the woman donated to charitable causes far more than she spent on this surrogacy? Is she then OK? It's so illogical to say, "you have a problem that you could spend a lot of money to have a 'solution' to, but I think you should a) not pursue that solution and b) take the money you WOULD HAVE spent and give it to charitable causes". Unless a person lives an extraordinarily modest lifestyle, far beyond actual means, and donates all of the excess, he/she has absolutely no legs to stand on with such an argument.

Point 2: "I can't believe she would only pay the surrogate $25,000."

The funniest thing is that this comment often went hand in hand with the one above. So let me get this straight. You are saying that it is unfair that only "rich" people can do this, and that it is too much to spend on something of this nature - but you now want to make it MORE expensive? I agree that the sum is not much for compensating a surrogate, but it is the going rate probably BECAUSE if it were higher so few could do it. Surely the money is a nice perk, but almost any surrogate will tell you that they are doing it more because they want to help start (or continue) a family.

Point 3: "She is exploiting a poor woman."

Wow. How incredibly offensive to the kind, educated woman who DESIRED to be a surrogate. Because she was sitting on a weathered porch, we now call her poor? How arrogant of these commenters who are supposedly so concerned about exploitation. They are also insulting her intelligence, suggesting that she wasn't smart enough to not become exploited by surrogacy. The article specifically states that she has a higher education and that she and her husband are middle class. How exactly do people think women become passively exploited by surrogacy? Do they think a wealthy woman is standing in the shadows of a poor woman's house prepped and ready to tackle her with a catheter filled with embryos and impregnate her? Do they think that there are surrogacy brothels where unsuspecting women are being blindly led to do things they don't want? If there is one thing certain about surrogacy, is that it has to be an active decision on the surrogate's part. Just the IVF itself is intensive, requiring daily shots in exactly the right doses, a multitude of appointments, and frequent tests. It is a very CONSCIOUS process, not to mention the whole pregnancy itself. The surrogate in this story was a substitute teacher. Depending on where she lives, she could easily have made more than this surrogacy paid. Yet, she made the ACTIVE decision to make less and to do something extraordinarily generous. Clear choice does not equate to any form of exploitation.

Point 4: "I can't believe she didn't adopt."

As several commenters did point out, people who said this obviously know nothing of adoption. These same people often made the comments about money above...clearly they don't realize that to adopt a child in the U.S. easily costs the same as surrogacy in some cases and to adopt internationally costs multiples of what surrogacy costs in most cases. And, as I have noted in the past, the image of thousands of babies lying around waiting for a home is simply not reality. There are more people who want to adopt in the U.S. than there are babies who need adopting. Most people don't know that. I guess if I put myself in the thought process of someone who does assume that to be the case, I can better understand where they are coming from. But even so, if they have not adopted themselves (given all these babies they think need homes), why do they believe it to be the responsibility of infertile people to adopt the world's infants looking for homes? If you are able to have biological children and choose to adopt with no biological children of your own, you have a right to make the statement that infertile people should adopt because you would say that fertile people should adopt too. Fine. But if you have chosen to have even one biological child, you have expressed a desire to have that experience and should have no trouble understanding why others would have that desire too.

Point 5: "She is so egocentric for needing to pass on her genes so much."

Again, you can only make this statement if you did not have biological children by choice and chose to adopt instead (incidentally, I do know several people who have done this). If you have a biological child, that would make you equally egocentric for "needing to pass on your genes". Clearly people don't think that way so it's the "payment" and "extra effort" to pass on genes that makes the difference in their minds. Again, that's illogical - the underlying desire is the same whether you have trouble or not. If you have a biological child you can say nothing about this.

Point 6: "If you can't have a child naturally, you shouldn't be passing on your (presumably) bad genes."

This point probably infuriated me the most. At the absolute most darwinian level, I guess I understand what they mean in terms of "survival of the fittest". However, they are missing a critical point. The fittest may be someone who only has reproductive problems and perfect health otherwise. So are reproductive genes the most important ones of all for determining who should survive the darwinian race? Say on the one hand you have theoretical people who are battling multiple horrible diseases and have a life expectancy of 20 years. On the other hand you have theoretical people who are perfectly healthy except for a minor reproductive problem and life expectancy of 90 years. Which genes do you think a child would rather receive? Now, I am NOT saying that people battling diseases are any less deserving of having children or that they should not pass on their own genes - I disagree strongly with that. I'm just using this as an example of the fallacy of the argument that reproductive factors should weed people out.

Point 7: "How dare the NY Times run this story when people are struggling in this economy?"

I guess that the NY Times also shouldn't run ads for all the expensive items in their publication during these "troubled times"? I guess that if someone has the means to have a child in a medically advanced way they should say, "well, these are troubled times, I guess I will just shut down my life's most important desire to have a child because things don't look great for a lot of others"? I certainly hope that the people who made comments along these lines don't read the sports section. How dare the NY Times run stories on athletes who are making millions per year during difficult economic times?

Point 8: "This is like prostitution" (or some variant on the moral case against surrogacy).

I would bet my life's savings on there being only a handful of negative comments rather than hundreds of negative comments if the story featured a uterus transplant given to the woman, after which she carried her own baby. Few people would care in the same way because they would see it like an organ donation of any kind (sure, there would still be some skeptics, but not in the order of magnitude you see here). There is no kind of organ that you can use outside of your own body EXCEPT the uterus. It is unique in that you can literally "borrow" it for a time and the organ giver can keep it after. If you had a kidney transplant, you would certainly pay for it, and no one would shout, "kidney prostitution!" But because the giver is being compensated (not an insurance company), and the organ remains with the giver, people can't deal with the "conceptual appearance" of the following three things: a woman receiving money, a baby being born, the baby being given to someone else. It's like walking into a room and seeing people hiding behind couches, a knife on the table and all the lights out. Conceptually, it looks bad because you don't have the pieces to put the story together. However, with a little more information you would realize it's a surprise party, that people are hiding from the guest of honor, that the knife is a cake knife, and the lights are out for the surprise to work. In the same way, money + baby + giving baby to someone else does not = buying a baby. It's compensation for time to respectfully "borrow" a more medically viable organ than your own to carry and deliver a baby that was yours to begin with. THAT is gestational surrogacy.

And then there are people like J who are doing this without any compensation at all. It would be fascinating to read comments on an article about uncompensated surrogacy - I wonder just how different they would be.