Opposites attract on the surrogacy issue

There is something about a surrogacy case - particularly a failed one - which seems to bring everyone out in a rash of moral outrage. The latest such incident is the case of Helen Beasley, whose story was first reported in last week's BioNews.

Surrogacy is one of those issues that often makes strange bedfellows of conservatives and liberals. Although they may feel uncomfortable about surrogacy for entirely different reasons, they seem united on one main aspect of the process: that money, along with a baby, is changing hands.

Writing in the generally liberal Guardian newspaper last week, columnist Catherine Bennett called surrogacy a 'grotesque transaction'. Meanwhile, Anthony Daniels, writing in the rather more conservative Daily Mail, said: 'I am as fond of money as most people, but I believe that there are some things best done not for its sake, among which is the bearing of children.'

It is of course true that money, as well as a baby, changes hands in surrogacy. But this is also true of other techniques of assisted reproduction. In the IVF clinic, the doctors and scientists are paid for helping a patient get pregnant. Is this patient buying her baby? Few people would think so. Yet, with surrogacy, payment to a woman to carry a baby to term is often misconstrued as payment for the baby itself.

Some say that there is a difference with surrogacy: that a woman (often on a low income) is offered money for doing something she would not otherwise be doing. Unlike an IVF doctor, the surrogate would probably not be taking part without the offer of money. The implication is that the prospective surrogate is too vulnerable to think clearly about whether or not to proceed. But Helen Beasley doesn't seem like a vulnerable person. In fact, she put her foot down about the selective reduction at the risk of being left without parents for the babies. A situation which has, unfortunately, become reality.