Cafs

Discuss arguments for and against surrogacy. When developing your arguments, consider the viewpoints that might be expressed by different groups within society such as a childless couple, a same sex couple, a blended family and different cultural and religious groups.

Arguments for surrogacy:

Surrogate motherhood raises difficult ethical, philosophical and social issues. There is debate in the community as to the wisdom of surrogacy arrangements. There is scope for disagreement as to the morality of aspects of such reviews the arrangements. This Chapter reviews the arguments for and against surrogacy, including the moral bases for making judgements about surrogacy. In raising these issues the Commission is seeking guidance on community attitudes to assist in formulating principles on can he made.

Arguments against surrogacy:
Considerably more arguments have been advanced against the use of surrogacy arrangements. Surrogacy may involve identifiable risks to the child, to the surrogate mother, and to the commissioning parents.
Welfare of the Child
Surrogacy arrangements involve not only the commissioning couple and the surrogate mother, but the resulting child as well. Accordingly, it is argued that the society has a right to prohibit surrogacy in order to prevent children being born in undesirable circumstances. It is further argued that such arrangements are in reality contracts for the purchase of a child, which are quite unacceptable.
Some would argue that there are very specific risks to the child born as a result of a surrogacy arrangement. Unlike the position when a child is adopted, if unregulated surrogacy arrangements are allowed to occur, there would be no objective, impartial assessment of the suitability of a commissioning couple to be parents. The risk would be that the governing selection criterion would simply be the capacity to pay the surrogacy fee. Of its very nature the surrogacy arrangement is likely to lead to more custody disputes