General News Surrogate offered $10,000 to abort baby

If she wasn't willing to abort, she shouldn't have signed a contract that agreed that she would "in case of severe fetal abnormality."

Regardless of the ethics of aborting children with birth defects, the ethics of contracts are pretty clear: don't sign ones with clauses you aren't willing to follow through on.

Just my opinion.

 

She knew the terms of the contract when she signed it.

 

If I'm reading that right... they wanted her to abort the baby halfway through the second trimester... which I'm pretty sure is illegal in almost every US state.

 

You can abort at will through the second trimester, and in the third in cases of medical necessity and (I think) severe defect. In any case, I think bodily autonomy trumps contractual obligations and I support her right not to abort. Actually, the main reason I find surrogacy ethically troubling is because I feel like it has too much room to interfere with bodily autonomy.

 

she did, but it's not clear that provision is even enforceable. i think it's pretty likely that a judge would find that a mandated-abortion provision is void as against public policy.

 

I have always believed that the right of bodily integrity is inseparable from the person and not alienable unless the person does something horrible enough to surrender his or her own humanity. There is no point where Ms. Kelley signed away her right to her body. She is not rental space for someone else's property. She did not become property. Therefore, she cannot be compelled to have or not to have an abortion. The decision is with her.

Now, I strenuously disagree that it's a good idea to move forward with this pregnancy, but the only one who is morally allowed to make that spectacularly terrible decision is her.

There is a legal doctrine of unconscionability in contract law, and I believe that's what Ms. Kelley's attorney will try to argue. I hope that she will be successful. Even though a ruling in her favor would be catastrophically bad for the child and her personally (in the sense of being stuck with the child), from the standpoint of principle, we can't allow for contractual arrangements to override bodily security, because then we're letting people turn themselves into something they are not: property.

 

Most states (I believe ~40 of them) have a cut off of the second trimester starting, even in cases of birth defects.

However, they would have forced her body to do things it wasn't supposed to in order to do such a late term pregnancy, and protecting her body should take priority over a contract, and most judges will say the same.

 

In my eyes, the right thing to do would have been to abort the baby. Maybe she could have some quality in her life, but it read to me like she is going to be severely mentally and physically handicapped. I am not sure if the potential for quality life is larger than the pain this kid is going to go through, if she even lives past the first 10 years. There are a lot of children already in the world that needs parents and are in emotional pain. Why enforce another one a worse fate?

But that is just my humble opinion.

 

I don't think there was any right thing to do here.

 

Depends.

The organs that are missing may form before birth. If they don't, abortion doesn't matter as the baby will die anyway.

If they do, then there's a chance they'll be perfectly healthy aside from the cleft lip, which is fixable with surgery.

 

I realize I'm going to catch hell for this, but, if I legally order and pay for food in a restaraunt, that food belongs to me, I get to decide what happens to it, not the waitress. I dislike comparing the human body to a dinner, but a surrogate is comparable to a waitress. They deliver someone else's property. I am sure this is an awkward dynamic but if she is uncomfortable with that, she needs to get a new career field.

 

Though, I will say one thing:

Why is the surrogate taking care of her? Did she adopt her? She's biologically and contractually the couple's. Unless they used the surrogate's eggs, in which case, in most cases like this, she has a right to keep the baby even when the paying couple wants to abort.

Things get iffy when you get into the legality of surrogates.

 

i'd abort 10 babies for that money, frankly [i didn't read the article]

 

Pretty much this ^ . Being a surrogate means that in essence the baby you are carrying belongs to the parents, it is not yours. Therefore they have the right to decide what to do with it. To attempt to make life altering decisions over a child that *is not legally yours* is wrong. I do not think that the opinion of a surrogate should outweigh the opinions of the legal parents/guardians of the child. Particularly since her reasoning involves religious roots. In the article it mentioned that she told them it wasn't "their decision to play God." The religious beliefs of the surrogate should not be valid reasoning to take rights away from the legal guardians, especially if the surrogate signed a contractual agreement. She may not have signed her body away, but the fetus inside of it does not belong to her and she should not have the right to make decisions for it.

 

I think you are totally right. There is SO MUCH WRONG with this article. Look - I work with special needs individuals. So it is a tough situation for me.

But, in terms of being a surrogate - you are A SURROGATE. You are being paid to do this. If you decide to not do something, then you have to pay the price. Frankly, this girl should be sued. I know that abortion might be illegal at a certain point, but this was a medically necessary situation.

Sometimes... I wonder...

 

Actually, the law on who are the legal parents of a child born through surrogacy aren't that black and white. In fact, as noted in the article, they vary from state to state. Where I live, for instance, a surrogate (even one entirely genetically unrelated to the child) has to formally relinquish parental rights within a certain period after birth. If she changes her mind and decides not to do so, she remains the legal mother.

 

I think that pretty much sums it all up. The end result is that the decision became the surrogate mother's responsibility, and the world and everyone else just has to live with her decision. In a case like this where there really is no "right" decision, not everyone is ever happy with the end result.

 

Did any of you even read the entire thing? She's already been born and adopted.