Surrogate Motherhood
SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD – CHANGING PARADIGM IN INDIAN SOCIAL SCENARIO
** Dr. Mrs. Vijaya Sharma * Mrs. Jaya Dadhich In all cultures of the world, motherhood is something which is considered to lie at the heart of the meaning of love. The concept of a woman’s love for her children is viewed as the most powerful, ferocious, tender and unconditional love that exists. Motherhood for Indian women is a psycho-spiritual phenomena and not just a psycho-sexual one. This psycho-spiritual meaning of all the institutions of socialization, particularly marriage of which a child is the outcome, makes the Indian context different from other societies. The preparation for mother-baby interactions begin much before a woman actually attains motherhood . Now the term motherhood is expanded to the surrogate motherhood , which means that a women helps women i.e. if any women , couple cannot conceive on their own and want a baby , they now have modern technologies to allow them to have children . Some use medical treatments to overcome this situation , for some no help is available and surrogacy comes to the rescue . Need of surrogacy arises when woman is unable to carry a child due to failure of embryo to transplant , repeated miscarriages , hysterectomy or pelvic disorder , dangerously high blood pressure and heart or liver disease1 .
SURROGACY IN ANCIENT TIMES Surrogacy was known and practiced in ancient times also . One of the first ancient references to infertility occurs in Genesis, when Jacob’s wife, like many of her Biblical peers, was unable to bear a child. After praying to God and begging her husband, she sends Jacob
“unto” her maid and then adopts the resulting child as her own2 . In Jewish law, a childless couple falls within the category of personal suffering and there exists a clear obligation to assist them in every permissible way, as long as no one is
** Dr. Mrs. Vijaya Sharma * Mrs. Jaya Dadhich In all cultures of the world, motherhood is something which is considered to lie at the heart of the meaning of love. The concept of a woman’s love for her children is viewed as the most powerful, ferocious, tender and unconditional love that exists. Motherhood for Indian women is a psycho-spiritual phenomena and not just a psycho-sexual one. This psycho-spiritual meaning of all the institutions of socialization, particularly marriage of which a child is the outcome, makes the Indian context different from other societies. The preparation for mother-baby interactions begin much before a woman actually attains motherhood . Now the term motherhood is expanded to the surrogate motherhood , which means that a women helps women i.e. if any women , couple cannot conceive on their own and want a baby , they now have modern technologies to allow them to have children . Some use medical treatments to overcome this situation , for some no help is available and surrogacy comes to the rescue . Need of surrogacy arises when woman is unable to carry a child due to failure of embryo to transplant , repeated miscarriages , hysterectomy or pelvic disorder , dangerously high blood pressure and heart or liver disease1 .
SURROGACY IN ANCIENT TIMES Surrogacy was known and practiced in ancient times also . One of the first ancient references to infertility occurs in Genesis, when Jacob’s wife, like many of her Biblical peers, was unable to bear a child. After praying to God and begging her husband, she sends Jacob
“unto” her maid and then adopts the resulting child as her own2 . In Jewish law, a childless couple falls within the category of personal suffering and there exists a clear obligation to assist them in every permissible way, as long as no one is
References: Motherhood, Internatiopnal Perspectives, Portland: Hart Publishing, 2003.p