Surrogacy in the LA Times: Military wives and missing payments
A couple weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times featured a personal story of a surrogate mother. At 32 years of age, the mother of six children of her own is now carrying twins for a couple from an overseas nation where surrogacy is prohibited. The woman's surrogacy agent extolled the virtues of so-called "military wives":
Military wives, they don't cry, they don't complain at the drop of a hat. They're organized. They're efficient. They handle everything when their husbands are gone.... A few shots during the first few months is not going to bother them, and they don't need to be told to be polite and professional and show up on time.
Furthermore, as a military wife, her medical insurance pays for the pregnancy:
Military wives have been criticized in recent years for using their military insurance to make money as surrogates. But military brass who have tried to end the practice have had little success. Although Pentagon officials dismissed surrogacy as an "income-producing enterprise" they failed to eliminate surrogate medical coverage from recent defense spending bills.
According to the article, some agencies even pay a bonus to surrogates with the generous military plan. While her personal story is engaging, I found the article from Newsweek in April 2008, which focused on surrogacy among military wives, more informative.
Another recent article in LA Times should give pause to all parties in commercial aspects of assisted reproduction, such as surrogacy and providing eggs. Committed payments and deposits are vanishing at two agencies, and perhaps more. It seems that the global financial crisis has struck the baby business.
At Slate, Will Saletan explores what could happen to the pregnancy if payments to a surrogate cease.
Previously in Biopolitical Times: