I was watching the morning news yesterday when I caught the tail end of this story. I didn't think much of it until the next day when I saw the full story and realized how interesting it was. The cliffnotes version is this: a Connecticut couple hired a woman to be their surrogate, but asked her to abort the pregnancy after they discovered the baby would have birth defects. The woman refused to abort and the couple said they would give up the baby if she went through with the pregnancy, making the child award of the state. The couple offered $10,000 for her to abort, she countered with $15,000, which they refused to pay, before choosing to continue with the pregnancy. She told the couple she was moving to another state at the very last minute, and legal action ensued. The move was so she would have more rights and leverage in a legal arena as the state that she settled in considers the birth mother the legal guardian of a child. She had the baby and the little girl was born with even more medical issues than first detected. The surrogate is a single mother with two children of her own and ultimately had to give the baby to adoptive parents who specialize in raising children with medical issues.
There are a lot of things I don't understand in this story, and even more that I don't agree with. According to the article, this couple already have three children, all born prematurely, two of whom have medical problems. Obviously, there are some issues with the DNA there so why would you still choose to try for a fourth child? If one of my children were born with a serious medical problem, I'd have to really think about having a second. Children with medical problems are expensive and require constant care, I'd have to ask myself if I was willing to roll the dice that any future kids wouldn't have issues. This couple has two with problems, so they knew the likelihood of this child having similar issues. I just don't think it's worth the gamble. I also don't agree with their decision to abort the pregnancy. I'm against abortion anyway since I believe life begins at conception (I'm also pro-choice, figure that one out), but this is about more than that. They knew the risks, they chose to proceed and they should have lived with that decision. Part of the problem these days is that with all the technology we have, people can see what's going on with their babies before they're born and they can terminate the pregnancy if they don't like what they see. It's the equivalent of shaking the Etch-A-Sketch and starting over again when you make a mistake in whatever it is that you're drawing. Everybody has this vision in their head of a perfect baby who will carry on their legacy and live up to all of their expectations, but not everyone thinks about the percentage of children who are born with medical problems. Half the people I know were born with some issue; lung problems, blood disorders, I was born with kidney issues that persisted until I was 10. What if any of our parents had seen some small abnormality on an ultrasound and chosen not to go through with the pregnancy? Back then doctors couldn't conclusively say how severe a birth defect might be. I think you should live with the decision you make, and this couple's decision was to have a fourth child. The embryo took, that baby was theirs. The mother of my child was north of 35 when we became pregnant and the risks of having a child with issues skyrockets after that age. But there was never a thought about not having it, regardless of what any tests showed. It was our child, end of story. The same will hold true if I ever have more kids in the future. My second beef with this story is the surrogate and her counter offer of $15,000 to abort. I don't trust anyone who can be bought, especially over something so major. But I understand not everyone is as staunch in their beliefs as I am. Still, when you're dealing the fate of a human being you should know what side of the fence you stand on before you agree to be a surrogate. At the end of the day, it's not your child that you're carrying, it is someone else's (unless they're using your DNA, that's a whole other story), and you have to understand that those people control what happens with that baby. You're either comfortable giving them that power, or you're not. That couple didn't have to offer her a dime. The fact that she tried to up the offer and basically extort more money out of them makes me suspicious as to what her true motivations were. Maybe she's enjoying the spotlight, maybe she liked the idea of having another baby. Who knows. The whole story is effed up and I just hope the baby is able to live some kind of a normal life at some point.
