Bioethics in Faith and Practice, Volume 2, Number 1

26 Lones ⦁ A Christian Ethical Perspective on Surrogacy Rather than adopting a child who has already emerged from her mother's womb, embryo adoption allows the adopting family to begin the adoption journey nine months earlier with pregnancy and childbirth. It is commonly reported that there are over 600,000 of these healthy, viable embryos in the United States. In the Adoptive Surrogacy perspective, producing embryos via IVF is ethically questionable, and should be opposed. However, “snowflake” adoption values human life, respecting the personhood of embryos. Embryo adoption does not create new life but rescues children who have been orphaned. In welcoming children as God’s gifts, this ethical position argues that couples should seek to rescue all orphaned children whether they have been born or are frozen embryos. Ethical Principles to be Considered in Forming One’s View on Surrogacy: The lack of a moral or ethical compass is one of the results of our postmodern culture. Many people would admit to having no external criteria for judging their beliefs. With no absolute criteria to be relied upon for discerning truth, that which is rational is often replaced by what is subjectively “pleasing.” This inner directed emphasis of “whatever is pleasing to me” coupled with the rampant relativism of no absolutes has fostered the myth of choices without consequences. People behave as if the relationship between behavioral choice and consequences has been detached. Most people have default values – a series of values that minimize the friction between personal spiritual inclination, personal emotional preferences, cultural expectations and relational pressures. Default values are flexible values because the person’s needs and preferences can change with each shift in the context of life. Christians should resist reject default values and consider the moral implications of surrogacy in light of the following ethical principles. 1. Embodiment Significance of Procreation One of the foundations of a responsible ethic concerning sexuality is to see sexual acts as personal acts involving the whole person. Just as lust is wrong because it disregards the whole person and her human dignity, so surrogacy is immoral because it isolates and uses a person’s reproductive capacity apart from her personal life. The surrogate’s womb is thus commodified, reduced to the status of the animated tool of reproductive technologies – and “animated tool,” of course, was Aristotle’s definition of a slave. vi Helena Ragone´ cited three profound shifts in Western perception of conception, reproduction, and parenthood that are consequences of ART. First, birth control and contraceptive methods led to the separation of intercourse from reproduction creating the foundations for surrogate motherhood. Second, the fact that sexual intercourse is no longer a precondition for pregnancy led to fragmentation of the unity of procreation. Third, ART undermines the organic unity of fetus and mother. Thus, overall, reproductive medicine has led to the fragmentation of motherhood as several different women may take part in the creation of one new life, contributing ovum, womb, or child care. vii Surrogacy, as well as other artificial reproductive technologies, may have the tendency to treat a person as a mere components of tissues, organs, and functions instead as a whole person. Feminist Gena Corea, in quoting from a study of an Australian in vitro fertilization program, draws attention to the dehumanizing aspect of the treatment: