LOS MARGINADOS: BioEdge: Let’s make surrogacy professional

domingo, 17 de septiembre de 2017

BioEdge: Let’s make surrogacy professional

BioEdge: Let’s make surrogacy professional

Bioedge

Let’s make surrogacy professional

by Michael Cook | 16 Sep 2017 |

Some surrogate mothers in California / Surrogate Alternatives

Two New Zealand academics have proposed a new model for handling surrogacy. At the moment, where surrogacy is allowed at all, it is either a private commercial transaction or an unpaid altruistic gesture. Liezl van Zyl and Ruth Walker, of the University of Waikato, have proposed a government-regulated system.

They want to see surrogacy move to a professional standing, legally regulated and with greater protection for intended parents, the planned baby, and the surrogate mother. It would not be about building a career, but recognizing the surrogate’s caring motives, and compensating her for her work.

“The Government needs to look at the current way of handling things,” says Dr Walker. “It is not in babies’ best interests, and there is no security for surrogates or intended parents.”

The two academics suggest in their new book, Towards a Professional Model of Surrogate Motherhood, that governments establish a kind of “Department of Surrogacy”. This new agency would ensure that demands made on the surrogate are reasonable; counselling is provided; the child has the right to have a relationship with the surrogate; and that the government sets the fee for the surrogacy.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

For better or worse, this week’s newsletter seems largely dedicated to topics revolving around euthanasia. Belgium’s system is finally getting the close critical scrutiny it deserves in a new collection of essays from Cambridge University Press.

Coincidentally, the doyen of euthanasia there, Dr Wim Distelmans, has just released statistics about child euthanasia. “Nothing to see here; please move along,” seems to be his message. In three years, only two children have been euthanised. Perhaps that is an index of how normal euthanasia has become in his country.

Assisted dying is a hot topic, too, in Australia, in the states of Victoria and New South Wales. BioEdge has organised a free forum on NSW’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill on this coming Thursday in Sydney. It will be held at Parliament House, on Macquarie Street, from 9.30am to 12.30pm. A number of medical and legal experts will be discussing the possibility of legal euthanasia in New South Wales. For more details, please check our Facebook page.