Encounter with a surrogate mother

After much persuasion, assurance of confidentiality, I was granted access to the surrogate mother but without any gadgets: phones or cameras in the course of my brief interaction with her.

Seated comfortably on the sofa was Diana (not real name) with her bulgy tummy which I understand is more than five months old. The way she is being spoiled depicts the desperation of the parents to be.

23-year-old Diana has a story to tell. She was expelled from school because she became pregnant while searching for money to settle her school fees. She almost lost her life trying to get rid of the pregnancy which was actually what gave her away.

After a few years of trying to make ends meet on her own in Abuja, she felt God had answered her prayers when a friend approached her that there was a couple from abroad that was looking for a surrogate mother for their eggs. She jumped at the option seeing it as a way out of her dilemma.

N3million is the contract sum! To her and her siblings, this was a breakthrough having lost both parents some years back. Besides, she shall spend seven months abroad living and breast feeding the child for the couple after delivery.

There was excitement written all over her face, “I am going to give birth abroad, we shall leave when the pregnancy is seven months.” She said. But does she understand the implication of her business? Does she understand that after being paid off, this couple would not like to ever see her again? Does the couple realize that they will forever live under the fear that their little secret might be revealed? And should that happen, how many people would they end up hurting?

Surrogate parenting is strange in this part of the world thus, the surprise this writer had upon encountering one. In the present age, infertile couples have an option that was never available a couple of decades ago. Many loving couples have suffered divorce as a result of infertility. Little wonder why this couple has to put a façade to their parents-in-law that the wife is pregnant. Visitors are not allowed to see her nor are her siblings allowed to visit except twice a month for an hour only.

In the past, there was only one way to have a baby, but modern technology has added variations that raise disturbing problems. Some of the fertility techniques include

* Artificial insemination of the wife (either by the husband’s seed or by a donor’s).

* Embryo transfer: If the woman cannot produce viable eggs, another woman can be inseminated with the husband’s sperm. The fertilized egg can then be extracted from the female donor and implanted in the wife’s uterus.

* In vitro fertilization: The wife’s egg is extracted and fertilized in the laboratory by the husband’s sperm, then implanted in the wife.

* Surrogate mother: If the wife is unable to carry a pregnancy, another woman can be artificially inseminated with the husband’s sperm to have the baby for them.

Some practitioners of surrogacy have taken it to really disturbing dimensions. Some years ago, Pat Anthony a South African Grandmother acted as surrogate mother for her 25 year old daughter, whose uterus was removed some years ago. Mrs. Anthony was implanted with four of her daughter’s eggs that were fertilized in a laboratory with sperm from her son-in-law.

She gave birth to triplets; two boys and a girl by caesarean section at a Johannesburg hospital. This case according to moralists, added fuel to the moral and legal controversy surrounding surrogacy and a religious dilemma; the family in question were Roman Catholics, and the Vatican has condemned the practice of surrogate parenting.

But does our society, and most especially religion, permit such a practice? Surrogate pregnancy is not allowed in Islam because of issues of parentage and inheritance.

Similarly, the Supreme Court of France stated that surrogate motherhood violates a woman’s body and that “the human body is not lent out, is not rented out, is not sold,” said the account. “We will wait to hear what our Supreme Court in Nigeria will say about Surrogacy,” Zainab Adamu opined.

Popular Christian beliefs stated that gestational surrogacy too, defiles the marriage bed. “True, the fertilized egg would be a union of the husband and his wife, but it is thereafter placed in the womb of another woman and, in fact, makes her pregnant. This pregnancy is not the result of sexual relations between the surrogate woman and her own husband.

Thus, her reproductive organs are now being used by someone other than her own mate. This is inconsistent with the Bible’s moral principles that a woman bears a child for her own husband (Deuteronomy 23:2.) It would not be proper for a man other than the surrogate’s own husband to make use of her reproductive organs. It is an improper use of the marriage bed. Thus, surrogate motherhood is not for Christians,” a widely read Christian publication stated.

Muslim jurists have allowed the use of in vitro fertilization only between legally married couples during their marriage. Thus in vitro fertilization is permissible as long as the semen and ovum are from the couple who are legally married and the fertilization takes place during their marriage, not after divorce or the death of the husband.

According to Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, former President of the Islamic Society of North America, “a divorced woman is not allowed to receive the fertilized ovum (embryo) from her ex-husband. Similarly, a widow is not allowed to take it after the death of her husband. Surrogacy, i.e., giving the embryo to another woman to carry on the pregnancy in her womb is also not permissible in Islam”

The main reason why most women rent off their body for surrogacy is not compassion, it is not for the sake of promoting the human race nor is it for fun. Most women rent out their bodies as a venture to wriggle out of poverty: when one thinks deeply, is this not a kind of exploitation by the rich who will later severe any form of emotional attachment between the surrogate mother and their child? This is a woman whose womb has given your child life! Isn’t there anything wrong in hiring another woman to give your child life?