Bioethics Discussion Blog: "Manufactured Babies": Who are the Parents?

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Saturday, December 12, 2009

"Manufactured Babies": Who are the Parents?

An excerpt from the December 13 2009 issue of the New York Times "Uncertain Laws on Surrogates Leave Custody at Issue" by Stephanie Saul (Free registration may be necessary to access the article)

Unable to have a baby of her own, Amy Kehoe became her own general contractor to manufacture one. For Ms. Kehoe and her husband, Scott, the idea seemed like their best hope after years of infertility.
Working mostly over the Internet, Ms. Kehoe handpicked the egg donor, a pre-med student at the University of Michigan. From the Web site of California Cryobank, she chose the anonymous sperm donor, an athletic man with a 4.0 high school grade-point average.
On another Web site, surromomsonline.com, Ms. Kehoe found a gestational carrier who would deliver her baby.
Finally, she hired the fertility clinic, IVF Michigan, which put together her creation last December.


That was just the beginning. The birth of two children was not the end of the story since it turned out that the woman into whom the embryo was implanted and who carried twin fetuses to term shortly discovered that Amy had a mental illness and through the courts obtained custody of the children.

Read the whole story and the revelation that there are no consistent laws regarding “manufactured babies” nor even the adoption process itself for those children who were “manufactured” or not. What criteria would you suggest be incorporated into law and would be also ethical in the determination of “who are the parents”? ..Maurice.

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