SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD

Infertility is often associated with deep pain and distress and can even destroy marriages. The Bible acknowledges this when it tells of Sarah’s and Rachel’s painful experiences of barrenness and their struggles to overcome it (Gen 16; 30). Both resorted to using their slaves as surrogate mothers, who would bear children for them. This practice was in line with the customs of the day.

Given these stories, what can we say about the boom in “reproductive tourism” in South Asia, where women willing to act as surrogates are easy to find, costs are low and there are few legal hassles? For many South Asian women, renting out their womb and birthing a child for others is seen as a way to earn income to support their own families. How should we as Christians respond to this trend? Should believing Christians take part in surrogacy, either by seeking a surrogate or being a surrogate?

The Bible does not give explicit instructions about the lengths we can go to in order to overcome childlessness, but it does imply that it is not wrong to seek to help those who are childless. Faith in God’s providence does not mean that barren women must passively accept their condition. Moreover, God calls on his people to serve others and enhance their well-being. This suggests that it may not be wrong to offer surrogacy as a way to help a woman who is suffering because she is childless

How should the child carried by a surrogate mother be conceived? Polygamous solutions of the kind promoted by Sarah and Rachel are no longer acceptable. The Ten Commandments also prohibit adulterous sexual intimacy between a prospective father and a surrogate. What we can turn to is medical science. Fertility clinics offer an environment to engage in a cooperative venture with God without violating the marriage bond.

However, an ethical problem that still has to be addressed is what such clinics do with unused embryos – once one or two have been successfully implanted in a womb, are the others simply discarded?

How does such behaviour mesh with our understanding that God alone has the right to give and take life? Can we simply discard unborn children?

Another ethical issue relates to the payment of surrogates. In Genesis, slaves were used as surrogates to extend the master’s family and no explicitly commercial activity was involved. Today, surrogate mothers often need financial support, but we must take care that the children and the surrogate mothers are treated with respect and not reduced to objects with price tags.

Surrogate motherhood is not necessarily immoral, but situations and human intentions can render it so. Careful attention must be paid to the circumstances in which it is practised and every effort must be made to apply biblical principles in relation to the parents, the surrogate mother and the child so conceived. In many cases, the prospective parents should be encouraged to consider adoption rather than surrogacy. A blood relationship is not essential to a parent-child relationship.

Walunila Ozukum