Revisiting Sex Without Love
A while back, I wrote about Sharon Olds’ poem Sex Without Love and its application to Muslims.
I was thinking about that poem again, when I found out about, surrogacy contracts . In its core essence, a surrogacy contract is between a party who wants a baby and a mother who will act as a surrogate to carry a child through pregnancy and then give the child to party – ending her relationship with the child at birth. It’s much more complicated than that since there is no uniform law on it, with some states absolutely against it, some for it, and others totally have no law on the matter (find out what your state law. is on the issue.
I mention surrogacy contracts and the Olds poem because Olds actually mentioned something similar to this:
How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? […]
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away.
Surrogacy agreements got me thinking about this because Olds’ poem uses the example of the mothers giving away their children to equate how emotionally cold one’s act is when its sex without love.
The whole notion is upsetting to me. I feel as if the surrogate mother is an unaware victim. I say this because I personally believe that no woman can waive the right to a child she carries for months and endures the difficulties of pregnancy and childbirth, only to hand the living being over to another. While the law has made it very hard to engage in ‘selling babies,’ I still feel that it the core level – the law is sanctioning the transactions of humans.
posted by Dunia's Stranger @ 9:34 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
As an Intend Mother via gestational surrogacy........you could not be more wrong. Surrogacy at its core is about love......love of family, love of a mother, love of a surrogate and most of all the love of God. If love were not involved in surrogacy, it would not exist. Gestational surrogacy is about nurturing and growing someone else's dream........the law very clearly recognizes the parentage of the child in most states. In addition, gestation surrogates are screened by physchologists as well as their husbands or partners. Unless you have explored and researched surrogacy, and the amazing journey it is........don't be so quick to judge.
Dear Intend Mother,
You are the recipient of the product of love: the child.
When you say, "Gestational surrogacy is about nurturing and growing someone else's dream" - your right.
That child is a dream for you but at the same time the bond a pregnant woman develops with her child is something that remains.
I've studied the legal dimensions of surrogacy agreements and discussed cases in instances of where the surrogate refuses to give the child.
One case in PA, a surrogate refused to turn over triplets that were of another couple and had the children for three years until the courts were able to resolve the case and decide that the surrogate did not have a right to those children.
In the end, after 3 years those children were ordered to be turned over the 2 couple. Now ask yourself, how are those triplets going to deal with being torn from the family the regarded as mom/dad and then being put into a new family and being told that those are their real parents?
Its tough. I admit that there is good that can come out of surrogacy agreements. In fact, you may have the best experience with this as you claim to be doing. That still doesnt change the fact that for every good experience there is equally horrible experience.
So where does that leave us? At zero right.
My concern for the surrogate is that to have the child entirely removed from his life is very difficult and wrong. That is my personal contention with some surrogacy agreements. If I find some that involve the surrogate with the childs life and acknowledgment of that surrogate as having given birth to that child, I would perhaps consider that as acceptable.
Thanks for dropping by.
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