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Gestational Surrogacy and the Health Care Provider: Put Part of the “IVF Genie” Back into the Bottle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Karen H. Rothenberg
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Extract

Medical advances in new reproductive technologies continue to raise complex legal and ethical issues. Last October, a California Superior Court judge issued his opinion on the first contested case in this country involving gestational surrogacy. Upholding the surrogacy contract as valid and declaring that the genetic parents had exclusive custody and parental rights, Judge Richard Parslow observed:

The IVF genie is out of the bottle and you’re not going to be able to put it back.

I contend that we must put part of the genie back into the bottle. Gestational surrogacy is not an acceptable option for the extension of in vitro fertilization (IVF). This is not a reaction to the facts of the California case, but rather a recognition that the medicalization of surrogacy as a reproductive technology attempts to legitimize a practice that professionals should not support.

Type
Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , Winter 1990 , pp. 345 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics

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References

Johnson v. Calvert, No. 63-31-90 (Orange Cty. Super. Ct. Calif. October 22, 1990). Gestational surrogacy is used in combination with in vitro fertilization. The fertilized egg of the genetic mother with the sperm of the genetic father or a sperm donor in vitro is transferred into the uterus of the surrogate, who is the birth mother. This differs from what I will term “genetic surrogacy” in which both the egg and gestation are provided by the surrogate, as was the case with Mary Beth Whitehead. Since the first birth in 1986, there have been about 80–100 births by gestational surrogates in this country. (cite) Non-commercial gestational surrogacy is also practiced at Bourn Hall Clinic, Britain's leading IVF clinic near Cambridge, England. See The Sunday Times, Aug. 19, 1990.Google Scholar
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