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... see more
Related Articles
By Fiona Harvey, The Guardian | 01.06.2021
By Jeffrey Mervis, Science | 01.06.2021
Low-income commuters who rely on public transit face many challenges—multiple transfers, long waits, and off-hour travel—that aren’t measured in the usual ridership surveys. Vanessa Frias-Martinez, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, wants to ease their commute...
By Sharon Begley, STAT | 01.06.2021
Biologists tend not to discuss experimental results on a handful of cells and a single solitary mouse — too preliminary, too sketchy. David Liu of the Broad Institute therefore had no plans to present such findings, which he’d peeked at...
By Gwen D’Arcangelis, Guest Contributor
| 01.07.2021
Photo by Adrian Lange on Unsplash
Living under the COVID-19 pandemic has justifiably created fear and uncertainty about germs and their evolving contagiousness and lethality. Against the backdrop of the natural evolution of the coronavirus and emerging new strains, many ruminate over further alarming scenarios—from questions about the coronavirus’s possible lab origins, to worry over the possibility of biohackers engineering new pandemic germs. New gene editing technologies like CRISPR make these scenarios all the more frightening, as they...
