Continuing issues and debate concerning transnational commercial surrogacy during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond
By Yuri Hibino, Sonia Allan, and Damian Adams,
BioNews
| 11. 30. 2020
The regulation of surrogacy varies around the world. Most countries that have laws, prohibit all forms of surrogacy, while several permit altruistic arrangements. A small number permit commercial surrogacy arrangements, and accept commissioning couples, or singles from nations where prohibitions exist. As a result, issues abound. For example, despite growing recognition that children have a right to information about their birth mother, gamete donor(s), and genetic siblings, transnational arrangements may provide little to no opportunity to build relationships when separated by language, culture, and/or location. Issues regarding the sale and commodification of children persist; cases of child abandonment are known. Trafficking of women across borders, bonded labour, health risks associated with surrogacy and egg donation, and ill-treatment of surrogates and intending mothers reported.
In 2020, COVID-19 also saw up to 1000 babies left in hospitals (or orphanages) in Russia, with intending parents unable to travel. In the Ukraine, babies were cared for in hotel rooms by nurses or nannies, or placed into public care (see BioNews 1048). Some surrogates struggled as they bonded with the baby or worried...
Related Articles
By Tristan Manalac, BioSpace | 04.02.2024
Verve Therapeutics has suspended enrollment in the Phase Ib Heart-1 study evaluating its lead gene editing program VERVE-101 following a serious adverse event, the company announced Tuesday.
A patient, who received a 0.45-mg/kg dose of VERVE-101, developed a grade 3...
By Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres, First Monday | 04.14.2024
The stated goal of many organizations in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) is to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), an imagined system with more intelligence than anything we have ever seen. Without seriously questioning whether such a system can...
By Harold Brubaker, The Philadelphia Inquirer | 04.04.2024
Acompany started by University of Pennsylvania scientist Jim Wilson has received FDA approval to test a form of gene editing in infants for the first time in the United States, the company said Thursday.
The Plymouth Meeting company, iECURE, is...
By Judith Levine, The Intercept | 04.04.2024
WHEN THE ALABAMA Supreme Court ruled that fertilized embryos were “extrauterine children,” it did more than imperil the future of in vitro fertilization in Alabama and, potentially, the U.S. The ruling, on the claimed “wrongful death” of frozen embryos...