VANCOUVER, British Columbia, October 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - More light has been shed on the web of legal and moral dilemmas surrounding artificial reproduction this week after a B.C. fertility doctor revealed a dispute between a couple and their surrogate over the couple’s desire to abort their baby. The National Post reports that the parents had discovered through a first trimester ultrasound that the child likely had Down syndrome.The first question (and the obvious one) is - what about adoption? After all, if the woman agreed to carry the baby for his biological parents - why can't she continue carrying the very same baby to term for some other couple that could adopt him later?
The surrogate, a mother of two, initially disagreed with the parents and decided to give birth to the child; however, she eventually decided to abort, according to the Post. The parties had signed an agreement saying that the parents would not be responsible for their child should the woman carry the pregnancy to term against the parents’ wishes.
But then - how can we expect common sense when it comes to practices that go against the basic moral laws?
However, Juliet Guichon, a bioethicist with the University of Calgary, said that children cannot be treated the same as any other product that might be created on an assembly line. “Should the rules of commerce apply to the creation of children? No, because children get hurt,” Guichon told the Post. “It’s kind of like stopping the production line: ‘Oh, oh, there’s a flaw.’ It makes sense in a production scenario, but in reproduction it’s a lot more problematic.”
According to Dr. John Shea, a leading Canadian bioethicist and expert on reproductive technologies, the situation highlights the dangers of Canada’s liberal laws concerning the beginning of life. “When you break the moral law, you end up with a thousand different problems, foreseen or unforeseen,” he said.
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