Nowadays, the reproductive technologies have been advanced. Many infertile couples can have their children through new technologies like surrogate motherhood. A surrogate mother who is paid to bearing a child for them and the contracted mother terminate her parental right after the born of baby. The surrogate motherhood can be divided into two categories:.
1. A man and his wife, who cannot produce egg, want to have a child. They hire a woman to be inseminated with the husband's sperm and to bear the child. She is called genetic surrogate mother. .
2. A man and his wife, who can produce egg, but cannot, bear a child. They have to rent a "womb" of another woman to gestate the embryo that will be formed by artificial fertilization of the husband's sperm and the wife's egg. She is called gestational surrogate mother.
The new reproductive technologies raise complicated issues, including both law and morality. In my point of views, I strongly oppose to the legalization of surrogate motherhood arrangement due to the law dilemma, the ruin of both surrogate mother's right and dignity and the violation of child dignity .
1. Law dilemma: How to define mother??.
The first question I would like to ask is that how to define the parental relationship. The contract of surrogacy requires the surrogate mother to relinquish any parental rights to the child. The traditional definition of mother is that a woman who has borne a child. The term includes maternity during pre-birth period. If the surrogate mother has desire to keep the child, the court will face the dilemma: The surrogate mother provides both the genes and the womb for the baby. By the definition, she is the mother of the child. She has right to keep the child, but according to the contract. She should give up the parental right.
The proponents may argue that it is the problem of the formulation of laws. This dilemma can be solved by redefine the definition of mother.