The case of Gammy, a baby born through surrogacy who was abandoned by his genetic parents after they discovered he had Down Syndrome, (and is now being raised by his surrogate (birth) mother, a Thai woman named Pattaramon Chanbua) is uniquely tragic. The apparent callousness of the parents taking Gammy’s twin sister but not him, the possibility that the commissioning father is a convicted sex offender – the situation is absurdly awful.
But it also throws the dubious nature of surrogacy into sharp relief.
Yes, some of the headline-grabbing aspects of this case could have been dealt with by regulations and screening. But there’s one thing Ms Pattaramon said that no safeguards or “best practice” could have helped with. Referring to Gammy’s twin sister, who is being raised by the Australian couple, she said:
“I want her back because she is my baby. She was in my womb.”
In one sense, of course, she’s right – she carried the children for the first nine months of their lives, and gave birth to them. But the woman whose genes they share, whose blood runs in their veins, is the comissioning mother. Motherhood has been split, and will always be split in every case of surrogacy, whether it’s commercial or altruistic, a woman in Thailand or India being paid a relative pittance or a commissioning mother’s sister acting out of the best possible motives. It’s naive to the point of irresponsibility for us to be surprised when this leads to tragedy – but even when it doesn’t, even when everything seems hunky-dory, in legalising surrogacy we will still have embraced and endorsed a worldview in which motherhood can and should be split, and one in which children can and should be brought into existence through artificial means to meet the needs of adults.
This changes the way we see children. They are no longer gifts, but products. Supporters of surrogacy may baulk at the word, but once it becomes acceptable to “commission” a child by using the womb of another, what is to prevent someone fulfilling their deep-rooted need for a particular type of child – say, one that does not have Down Syndrome? This is not a “slippery slope” argument – it’s a “limiting principle” one. Why is it OK to fulfill one need and not the other?
Implementing a complete ban on surrogacy (as a number of European countries, including Germany and France have done) would avoid this completely. What would be lost? Let’s look squarely and honestly at the answer: Some couples would be unable to have a child genetically related to them. This will be in many cases heartbreaking, and the possibility of adopting a child will not necessarily make it less so.
But not every need that can be met should, and when doing so would require us to split motherhood, rent wombs, and commidify children, we should as a society conclude that leaving this one unmet is a price worth paying.
