by Nick Suk (ARPA intern)

Children are gifts from God, not products to procure or commodities to purchase. Procreation should take place within marriage, not through the deliberate fracturing of natural relationships. This biblical foundation is violated when a third party becomes part of the procreation process, either as a genetic parent (gamete seller or donor) or as a surrogate mother.

These are live issues in Canada today. MP Anthony Housefather has tabled Bill C-404 to decriminalize commercial surrogacy and the sale of gametes. The intent of the bill is to increase the number of people in Canada who supply gametes or become surrogates by permitting them to get paid for it. Mr. Housefather intends to make things easier for those who cannot have children on their own. His bill is not only based on a faulty religious foundation that idolizes individual choice, but it also assumes there are no dangers in commercializing surrogacy or commodifying gametes. The evidence suggests there are.

Employment or exploitation?

Some argue that Canada’s prohibition on commercial surrogacy creates a victimless crime. We criminalize such activity, however, in part because those who rent their wombs risk their own health and lives for monetary gain. The health risks these women take economically benefit “big fertility,” which makes billions globally each year on the commodification of wombs, babies and gametes. Certainly, other work involves risks as well, but surrogacy is different in kind. With other work, people are compensated for the “fruit of their labour”, for what is made or accomplished by their labour, but not for the use of their bodies by others. With surrogacy, a woman is either being paid for the use of her body, or for the child she bears, or both.

Pregnancy brings health risks. Ordinarily, women do not choose to take on the risks for financial gain, but rather receive from God the gift of a child as the fruit of sexual union. Surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization treatments bring additional dangers. Several embryos are often transferred into the surrogates with the hope that at least one implants in the uterus. This increases the chances of a multiples pregnancy, which can lead to abortions or premature labor and delivery. The surrogate contracts away the use of her body to “intending parents”, granting them a certain degree of control. Surrogates might be required to refrain from certain foods or activities, or even to abort an “extra” fetus or a fetus with a detectable disability.

Commercial surrogacy destinations, such as India and Thailand, have banned or proposed to ban commercial surrogacy because of evident exploitation. In India, women are frequently “pimped” into becoming surrogate mothers for foreign buyers. If Canada legalized commercial surrogacy, we would be in the minority of nations that permit paying women (or paying agencies which pay women) for the use of their wombs. France, Germany, and Italy have banned both altruistic and commercial surrogacy because of its inherent dangers.

History and foundations of Canada’s law

Our current law, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, is based on the recommendations from the “Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies,” or the “Baird Commission,” which consisted of five women, all experts in relevant fields. The Commission’s recommendations were released at a time in which assisted reproduction technology was more novel, but their recommendations were based on timeless principles – for example, the importance of protecting vulnerable people against powerful commercial interests. They also wanted to ensure that the “profit motive is not the deciding factor behind the provision of reproductive technologies.” Once commercialized, some women will feel pressure to take significant health risks as a surrogate, mainly for economic reasons.

In the documentary “Breeders: A Subclass of Women,” produced by Jennifer Lahl, surrogates describe their loss of dignity and how they felt like tools for the intended parents. Their bodies became “hotels” for intended parents’ babies.

Commercial surrogacy also commodifies children. Unlike in adoption, “intended parents” pay a for-profit fertility clinic to match them with a surrogate who is willing to release her parental rights in exchange for money. Jessica Kern, a self-termed “product” of a surrogacy arrangement says her parents often carried a “we paid for you” mentality whenever she demonstrated dissatisfaction about not knowing her birth mother. Jessica’s human dignity was diminished. To Jessica’s parents, her birth mother was a service provider whom their daughter didn’t need to know.

Price-tags on children

Surrogacy also commonly involves the use of donor gametes, which brings further challenges to the children born through surrogacy. Anonymousus.org shares the stories of people who struggle with the knowledge that they have been intentionally deprived of any relationship with their genetic parents. One donor conceived person said, “It was crushing to learn that my dad got paid to participate in my conception.” Once gametes become commodified, more donor-conceived children will grow up not knowing their genetic parents and feeling like commodities.

Housefather has stated that it will be up to the provinces to regulate the surrogacy and gamete market once the Federal government decriminalizes it. With respect, this is reckless. There is no guarantee that the provinces will put in place regulations, thus risking the possibility that parts of Canada will have an unregulated market for reproductive technology. Unregulated surrogacy could mean poor background checks of intending parents or gamete donors and make it far easier for an abusive or unstable person to become a “parent”, essentially by purchasing a child.

Canadians are not entitled to have children by any practicable means. We should not allow greater risks to children and birth mothers by decriminalizing commercial surrogacy. It is one thing if a woman wishes to engage in such risks for altruistic reasons, but if impoverished women feel compelled to do so for economic reasons, then we are making a supposed reproductive right trump the dignity and best interests of Canadian women and children.

Take Action: Send an EasyMail letter to share your concerns with your MP

Bill C-404, “An Act to amend the Assisted Human Reproduction Act”, was introduced yesterday by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather.

If the bill passes, it will decriminalize commercial surrogacy and the sale of human gametes (sperm and eggs). This will allow women to enter commercial contracts to bear children for others in exchange for money. It will also allow paying people for their eggs or sperm.

The bill is short and simple and would do nothing to regulate these practices, except to specify that gamete donors and surrogates must be capable of consenting and not coerced, and the former must be at least 18 years old, the latter 21.

The bill raises many questions.

What would a market in human gametes look like? Would people with better health and higher IQs be able to make more donating their sperm and eggs? Are people going to shop for sperm and eggs based on donor profiles? How will this impact society’s view of human nature? Will younger, healthier women be able to demand higher pay for renting their womb? What portion of profits would go to a surrogacy agency and how much to the surrogate? What if the demand for surrogates is not met? Could the emergence of a market for womb rental result in vulnerable women being pressured into it? Even trafficked? Even if trafficking and coercion could be prevented, is it ethical to pay women to bear children to deliver to others?

ARPA Canada is concerned that this bill will risk the health and wellbeing of birth mothers and children for the following reasons:

• God designed reproduction to take place in marriage, as the fruit of bodily union between a man and a woman, and for children to know and be raised by their natural parents. Introducing third parties, either as sperm or egg donors or as surrogate mothers, crosses an important boundary and consequently leads to avoidable pain and confusion.
• Surrogacy commodifies women’s reproductive capacities. This is out of line with God’s good design for human reproduction and families. It undermines human dignity.
• Surrogacy agreements often restrain a woman’s autonomy by subjecting her to a specific diet, limiting or requiring certain exercise, possibly requiring her to abort one or several children, and to undergo a caesarian section delivery (the intended parents typically consider this the less risky option for the baby).
• Commercial surrogacy commodifies children as well. There should not be a price-tag attached to a child. The object of a surrogacy agreement is the delivery of a child to the paying party. Assisted reproductive services and surrogacy are provided in response to market demand, if the price is right, and the end product is a baby.
• Children born through surrogacy arrangements have expressed a sense of loss in not knowing their birth mother and knowing that their legal parents paid for them.
• Commercial surrogacy has been banned around the world because of how it leads to exploitation of women. Impoverished women are more vulnerable as they will be most prone to enduring the physical risks and emotional hardship of bearing a child for someone else. Very few countries allow commercial surrogacy, and some that have allowed it in the past such as India, are now restricting it to curb exploitation.
• Gamete commodification is damaging to the dignity of the children and dehumanizing. For one, it separates children from their genetic parents intentionally and by design. It also leads to a “designer baby” mentality, where people choose what kind of people they want “their” baby’s DNA to come from (smart, athletic, black, white, tall, short, etc.). It makes children a product to which people feel entitled, rather than the fruit that crowns marriage and is received from God as a good and sacred gift.
• For a woman, gamete donation requires drug-use, hormone treatment, and invasive medical procedures, which can have long-lasting medical effects. For a man, it typically involves pornography and masturbation.

Have questions? Contact us at [email protected]

For more information, read ARPA’s policy reports, “Surrogacy” and “In Vitro Embryo”.

*Correction: The first version of this article (May 30) stated that Bill C-404 did nothing to regulate surrogacy or gamete donation; the corrected version (June 1) notes that the bill includes consent and age requirements for donors and surrogates. We certainly did not mean to imply that the bill would permit the participation of minors or the mentally incapable. ARPA apologizes for the inaccuracy.*

If you agree take just five minutes right now and send this EasyMail letter to your MP, urging them to carefully consider this bill and the issues it raises and speak up in defense of human dignity and vulnerable persons.