Wombs for rent

By LEONNARD OJWANG
You are 9 months pregnant, except that the child you are carrying is not your own. Around the world, desperate childless couples pay large sums of cash to have a surrogate mother carry their baby. Many African societies still think it is immoral and could be seen as reproductive prostitution.

Surrogate mothers are women who agree, usually by contract and for a fee, to bear children for a couple who are childless due to infertility or physical incapability of the wife to carry a fetus to full term.

Surrogacy is a complex arrangement. Neena from Kasese, Uganda understands this better. “I actually thought of acting as my friend’s surrogate before I changed my mind,” she tells me.

“Why did you change your mind?” I asked.

She scans my face with a primitive look of innocence and says, “See, I have never had a baby before, and definitely my first baby cannot go to someone else.”

Neena’s argument reminded me of a conversation I had had with Linda earlier in Missouri. “Leo, be careful when talking to a woman about her body and rights,” she warns. “One, you have no clue what it is to be pregnant. Two, you don’t know the gravity of being pregnant with someone else’s child. Three, you don’t know what it is to be childless, destitute and lonely.”

“You are right. I don’t know,” I admitted.

“If I am a surrogate, I won’t tolerate a man telling me that it is morally wrong,” she went on rapping into my ears, “because it’s stressful and intense. Think about it: my womb is on ‘loan’ for 9 months!”

Before I could say anything, she added, “My work is to care for the elderly and sick. Some of them never had children. Would it be wrong for them to use surrogacy and have a baby to take after them?”

Linda does not see surrogacy as “handing over” the baby, but as “handing back” the baby. “Because, the baby is not yours from the beginning,” she asserts.

But do Africans have the patience, perseverance, willingness and the tolerance to allow or at best use it, without causing some degree of dissension?

Commercial surrogacy is legal in several countries. The industry is estimated to be worth millions of US dollars, and the number of surrogacy cases is increasing every year.

When Vaidehi gives birth in December in Anand, Gujarat, India, the baby will immediately be “handed over” to its biological parents, Mehta and Das, non-resident Indians who live in Texas, and who have been unable to have children on their own. The couple begun shopping for a surrogate 3 years ago and settled on Vaidehi because the cost of surrogacy services in Anand where she lived are low and the legal environment is relaxed. Having “rented her womb” to the couple, she will be paid $3,000.

Kagiso, from Polokwane, Limpopo, South Africa, has an interesting dream too. On her 29th birthday this year, she promised her barren aunt Rachel that her first two children will be hers to keep.

“Really?” I asked her.

“Leo, traditional surrogacy happens a lot in my village,” she tells me. “I will basically have 7 children. The first 2 will be my aunt’s and the rest will be mine. We also have fertility clinics just like here in America.”

I ha-had. “Are you saying that US surrogacy is appropriate?”

“Every culture can do it but in different ways. No one is ever wrong in morals. Just take the sex out of it; and it is perfect,” she replied tersely.

Some of these things can be hard to achieve in Africa, I thought to myself, due to complex ethical and legal issues. For instance, two decades ago, a grandmother, Pat Anthony from Tzaneen, Limpopo, South Africa, acted as a surrogate to her infertile daughter Karen Ferreira-Jorge.

Anthony became the first surrogate in the world to deliver triplets. This case grabbed international headlines, and as was the law at that time, all the children were Anthony’s until Ferreira-Jorge’s formally adopted them.

Infertility is every woman’s nightmare. When Marion immigrated to the US from Trinidad, a decade ago, she never knew the pomp of her marriage would quickly turn into one miscarriage after the other. After 3 consecutive miscarriages, she tried in-vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination in Baltimore, Maryland, but both failed; so she had no option except surrogacy.

“Leo, I have tried it all,” she admits. “My husband and I have searched far and wide for surrogates. There is no difference in surrogacy across these continents. Controversy comes when money is involved.”

“Yeah,” I said pitifully.

How easy will it be to sell such ideas in Africa, especially in cultures where traditions are as good as law, I wondered.
Paul agrees with me. “I don’t think my rural folks in Igoji, Kenya, will understand that such pregnancies are neither acts of promiscuity nor adultery,” he tells me. “Leo, you may try. It’s possible to win a few people,” he encourages me.

“I pray you win nobody,” Terry from Siaya, Kenya, reacts strongly to it. “How can I loan my body for a year? she asks. “Even if it’s not my child, but I carried it in my womb. Okay. Are you aware women have strong emotional attachment to their children? The emotional guilt for relinquishing your baby after delivery can be overwhelming.”

“Wow. That’s strong!” I said.

Before I continued, she interjected, “The umbilical cord scars a mother’s mind with birth memories of her child forever. That’s how strong the bond is. What if the surrogate changes her mind and decides to keep the baby after the whole surrogacy process?”
“Actually, it happened in America in 1988, in the case of ‘Baby M’ involving surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead who agreed to carry a child for a couple, William and Elizabeth Stern,” I had to give her the story to cool her down. “After Whitehead had delivered the baby, she changed her mind and decided to keep it; and an intense court suit ensued. If you ever looked for evidence that ‘blood is thicker than water,’ then this is it!”

It’s a story that easily resonated with Terry.

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Again, what if the baby is disabled? Who takes the baby?” she kept prodding, an indication of her rejection of the whole idea.

I had to look for a straight answer. “To avoid such disputes, it must be a legal matter as to whose names must appear on the birth certificate,” I said, feigning confidence.

“I am just thinking aloud,” Paul interjects. “What if the surrogate lied about her family health history or lineage?”
“It’s possible,” I agreed, partly because Terry was on the other line. Before I knew it, she quipped, “It means you can have a baby with someone you could be calling your ‘mother!’”

I frowned.

“Leo, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said. “It’s unfair for someone to live knowing that he/she was conceived from some prearranged conception. Okay. It’s an intensely emotional burden to bear for a lifetime.”

“I know,” I had to say something to cool her down.

Terry’s reaction shows how our “traditional” understanding about morals and ethics could be at odds with a woman’s decision to become a surrogate.

Earlier, Paul had told me “African men would rather marry a second wife, instead of using a surrogate.” It reminded me of Terry’s insistence that “in her culture, usually a barren woman recommends her husband to marry her own sister to help in bearing children.”

However, Neyin from Kaduna, Nigeria, believes “surrogacy should be illegal everywhere; and at best, immoral.”
“What’s your take?” I inquire.

“For the most part, it’s a personal choice. Whoever wants to be called a ‘reproductive prostitute’ can just go for it,” she quips.

The more I asked, the more I discovered problems than possibilities in the African context. For example, could relinquishing a child after delivery for a fee be “baby-selling”? How can we legitimize surrogacy in Africa? How many African women will rather charge exorbitantly or refuse to surrender parental rights, unless the men involved married them? Is it wrong for a surrogate to abort, when the adopting couples fail to pay the monthly fee agreed upon?

We tried tackling these issues with Linda but to no avail. “I wish you luck, Leo,” I recall Linda telling me. “Go for it,” she mocked me, “you may win a Nobel price.”

It was a chuckling statement.

Legalizing surrogacy in Africa is long overdue, if we must face out polygamy practices resulting from infertility on the part of the women in the current face of HIV virus. But we still need proper awareness on the pros and cons of surrogate motherhood through schools’ curricula, media, NGOs, public forums and medical institutions. There must also be comprehensive legislative clauses on surrogate motherhood in the Children’s Bill. However, policing and legitimization boils down to ethics and passing the Bill into law. Until then, a Nobel price is just but a tag.

Tags: Surrogacy, Surrogate, Surrogate motherhood, Surrogate mothers, Wombs for rent