I watched something quite interesting on TLC last night, it was entitled "Who's my Mommy?", I believe. It was the story of a couple who hired a surrogate to carry a child for them; the egg and sperm came from 2 other donors.
Apparently the sperm donor fertilized eggs donated by someone so he and his wife could have a child, and there were 13 leftover embryos frozen, and they were sent a form each year to determine what to do with those frozen embryos. They *thought* they instructed the lab to destroy them, but later realized they had instructed them to donate them.
So one of these embryos was implanted in the surrogate's body and she carried a child for this couple; however, the husband, after signing the contract, filed for divorce from his wife. It was a lot of *he said-she said*, but the bottom line is the man then stated he *would never be a father to this child*, the woman ends up a single parent, filing for child support, the surrogate feels the child is HERS, the sperm and egg donors are upset that the embryos were not destroyed, and this precious child is, in actuality, a sibling of the sperm donor's children, AND the other frozen embryos may have been used by other surrogates.
The question was, *who* are the legal parents of this child?? The woman who contracted the surrogate has been awarded legal custody of the child, the man who divorced her has been ordered to pay child support, but I believe he is appealing. The egg donor, who has 4 children of her own, stated that it really worried her to think that when her own kids go to college, they could possibly meet and fall in love with someone who is actually their sibling (having the same biological mother, since she donated eggs). The child apparently looks just like the twins the sperm donor and his wife have, the egg donor said she can see family resemblance to her own kids in the little girl's face.
I was just wondering how everyone feels about IVF, and what their thoughts are on who should be the legal parents of these children when there's a conflict.
I have to be honest, I waffled a bit while watching this show, but the bottom line is, there is this precious, innocent child whose life was, in effect, being bounced around the court system to determine who would actually be her parent(s), and she is 3 years old at the time this is going on. And the egg donor brought up a very good point, at what point have we gone too far, in that there were these fertilized eggs, and there could theoretically be 13 children out there who *weren't supposed to be*.
I know this will probably be a hot button, but I'm just really interested in everyone's view on this.

By Feona on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 05:59 pm:

Sounds like the woman who hired the surrogate is the mother.

I feel for the surrogate. She just wants the best for the baby she carried.

I guess surrogate children should get tested before they get married to make sure they aren't marring their sibling.... AHHHHHHH!!!!! (Feona runs screaming into the street holding her head - too complicated for the poor dear.)

By Karen55 on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 06:52 pm:

LOL, Feona!!! That's the whole point, it's become so complicated when things don't go as all of the involved parties planned.

By Joan on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 07:27 pm:

I watched this too. I'm terribly confused in what should be done. I feel so bad for this little baby. The baby should stay with the woman that she knows as her mother, that would be best for the baby.

By Karen55 on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 09:55 pm:

I agree with that, although at one point in the show I wasn't sure. The child looked so happy with the mother, who now has legal custody, but I did have some doubts when the surrogate was talking about how the legal mother had lied. I suppose what it comes down to (in my mind), was who do you believe.

By Annie2 on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 10:11 pm:

Legal issues and moral codes are just not keeping up with science and medical technology. From IVF, adoption, cloning, frozen embryos, birth control/adoption/abortion,etc...heaven help us! Hopefully common sense can still be a factor in a person's judgement and opinion.

By Kaye on Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 05:35 pm:

I agree with the courts in that the lady who hired the surrgote is the mom. As for the donors with kids out there (and biologically they have children out there), this was a decision they made. I know they had planned to only parent their own children, but I am pretty sure that somewhere in that IVF contract there is quite a bit of stuff let open for experimental stuff, etc. I also think they should certainly seek some legal malpractice advice. My cousin donated an egg to a friend, we talked long and hard about this subject. She felt like that an egg was just another part of her body, period, if her friend had needed a kidney she would have done that also. She never viewed it as a child. It is more weird for me to see them together, the baby looks so much like my cousin and her son. Labs make mistakes and when you go to one for something as precious as a child, you have to know there is some risk involved. Do you recall the case years ago where the doc was fertizling all the eggs with his sperm, he had 17 or something kids. UGH. For me I just couldn't do it. My husband and I talked about it before we had children and agreed that IVF was just too risky for us (i was not supposed to be able to get pregnant) So we planned on adopting.