Some surrogates know the couple, and volunteer their services. Others do it simply because they want to help a couple that is childless. Four authors continue, "One woman said, ' I wanted to do something that was out of the ordinary and that made me a little bit special'" (Dooley, McCarthy, Garanis-Papadatos, and Dalla-Yorgia 57). In other cases, the surrogate may be a friend or relative of the couple, and is helping them because they care for them and want to help. There are many motives for surrogacy, and if the motives are good and pure, there is little to argue with or dispute. A doctor who studied the motives of surrogate women notes, "The 'average' surrogate emerges as a white mother with a fair amount of education and income. As a group, they cannot be described as destitute or living in poverty, and do not need the fee being paid them for basic survival. On average, they do not report being under serious financial pressure" (Aigen). Surrogacy in itself can be a valuable aspect of a couple's life and happiness, and it may be the only way some couples can have a child to call their own. It is the issue of payment that is so onerous with surrogacy, and the fact that at least some women become surrogates only for their own monetary gain. However, there have been cases of women who did not seek monetary gain, and offered their services as surrogates, but then could not go through with it after the baby was born. One case is the case of "Baby Emily." In this case, the two couples were friends, and one couple, the Quinlans, could not have children because Mrs. Quinlan had suffered from uterine cancer and had her uterus removed. Mrs. Simpson, a mother of three, offered to carry the baby for the Quinlins. After the baby was born, however, Mrs. Simpson was not happy with the amount of time she got to spend with the baby, and even attended grief counseling, before she took the baby back and the case went to court. The court ruled in favor of Mrs. Simpson, and after almost two years, the baby was taken from...
This indicates that even agreements without monetary concerns can fall apart, and that can only lead to heartbreak for everyone concerned.
For example, the 1984 British government committee report suggested that "it is inconsistent with human dignity that a woman should use her uterus for financial profit and treat it as an incubator for someone else's child," in part because this threatens to undermine the traditional belief in an inviolable mother-child bond. Opponents who criticize commercial surrogacy from this perspective frequently attempt to differentiate between commercial surrogacy and "altruistic" surrogacy, in which
Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Laura Wingfield, a grown woman, kneels on the floor playing with glass figurines like a child. She envisions a dismal future for herself that includes total withdrawal from the outside world where bad things constantly happen and positive experiences are rare. The rest of Laura's family, who are kindred-spirits in hopelessness, share Laura's fatalistic view of life. "Unlike most of Williams's other works, which are
He was from a relatively poor family. "There were times," he told me, "when my mom would say, okay, it's your turn to sleep on the couch, you sleep in the chair, and you three get the bed." His poverty embarrassed him, and probably had a lot to do with his dropping out of school. He said that when he dropped out, he worked two jobs. This was not
The majority of women can return to their normal routine the next day ("In Vitro Fertilization"). In most cases total bed rest is not required unless there is some risk associated with the development of OHSS ("In Vitro Fertilization"). The NIH further explains that women who utilize IVF must take the hormone progesterone for at least two months following the embryo transfer ("In Vitro Fertilization"). The hormone is taken through
In "Piaf," Pam Gems provides a view into the life of the great French singer and arguably the greatest singer of her generation -- Edith Piaf. (Fildier and Primack, 1981), the slices that the playwright provides, more than adequately trace her life. Edith was born a waif on the streets of Paris (literally under a lamp-post). Abandoned by her parents -- a drunken street singer for a mother and a
Beatie did not accept biological determinism as the means by which to do gender. On the other hand, Beatie transcends gender altogether. By rejecting and then changing his genitalia and physique, Thomas Beatie passed through his life as a male and was legally and socially identified as such. He married a woman and most of the people he interacted with treated Beatie like they would any other man. When
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