Altruism or Profit? The case for surrogate women

Altruism or Profit? The case for surrogate women

I have just finished a radio interview in a Christian radio station. I found it very interesting that the host of the program researched me before I showed up; looking for any you tube videos I might have posted. Well, it turns out that, yes, I do have many you tube videos posted, some by me but many others by other people.
She saw one where I was interviewed and in that interview I had mentioned that I practice hypnosis in my early days when I co owned with my partner Guillermo Sardinas, the Institute of Hypnosis of Puerto Rico which later turned into Habitrol the combination of the words habit and control.
Since the interview was going to be about the difficult economic situation we are living in, I found it odd that the request was made.
I remember than in the old days, hypnosis was misinterpreted because of the negative connotation it had based on horror movies and ignorance about the subject. My partner Guillermo and I worked very hard educating doctors, dentists, psychologists and other professions in the positive use of hypnosis.
We opened up about six centers, two of them in the US which were the ones I had to take care of because of the language limitation of my partner.
When things were going great for my partner in Puerto Rico life threw us a curve. He died of a massive heart attack at the age of 36.
By that time I had already sold my two centers in the States and dedicated all my time to public speaking and consulting.
It turns out that Lili Marie, his oldest daughter and my God daughter is engaged in a very controversial practice, renting the body to a couple that can’t bear children.
First of all, let me say that I understand that this is a very controversial topic and I know that it will cause a lot of emotional reactions.
I believe that my God daughter has a right to do whatever she pleases with her body and in her case, she did it to help out a European woman who couldn’t bear children due to a tumor and removal of her ovaries.
She accepted this challenge at the age of 31 after having had three children of her own.
Yes, she did get paid for doing it, it is common practice in the US especially among wives of soldiers in the armed forces, but the desire to help women that can’t have children was present in her many years before she finally did it.
Being a psychologist, she obviously followed her Dad’s work and mine, she has this innate desire to help others psychologically and in this particular case, to help a couple have a much desired baby.
It is interesting that she just loves being pregnant and believes that God has given her the ability to have a healthy body to procreate. When she is pregnant she leads a normal life, plays tennis, swims, and goes shopping, to the movies and in fact, she believes she gets healthier.
Her Doctoral thesis that she just completed was titled “ Renting bellies: A study of Puerto Rican Women.
Her healthy pregnancies would contrast with the pain she suffered knowing that other women that loved to have a child simply couldn’t. She had a close friendship with a couple that couldn’t have children and for the first time offered to help them have the child through her.
In the end, the lack of knowledge or the negative reaction of society, who knows, dissuaded the couple from carrying out the pregnancy.
Later on, her then husband entered the US Navy and they relocated to California. It was there that she read an ad from a company that recruited surrogate mothers and she answered the ad
The wives of enlisted soldiers, according to a survey by surromomsonline.com, comprise 19% of all surrogate mothers in the United States. The main reason is that they have military insurance that covers their expenses. Most, if not all private insurance companies don’t cover the pregnancy if they find out it is a surrogate pregnancy.
Lili Marie went through a battery of tests and the hormonal treatment to make sure that she was able to carry out the pregnancy and after two tries, she was successful in giving birth to a baby boy and a baby girl. The biological parents were present during childbirth and stayed in the hospital until it was time to take the babies home. A few days later, they attended the birthday party of one of Lili Marie’s sons. They keep in touch constantly through email and they haven’t told their children the truth or anyone else, because in the country where they are from it is illegal to do this and they would get into big trouble.
My Goddaughter is now afraid that law 1568 which prohibits this practice in Puerto Rico passes and she is actively opposed to it and doing everything she can to help defeat it.
She believes that not being able to give birth is a sickness and that just like other conditions people must be treated and in this case helped to conceive babies. She believes that in Puerto Rico certain parameters should be established to make sure that it is done responsibly but that what must not happen it to criminalize the practice.
She says that “it should be regulated to a certain extent, to facilitate it, not to limit it.”
She doesn’t believe in the arguments against renting your belly. “It is not exploitation” she says, “It is providing a service. You are not selling the baby because the baby belongs to the biological parents that have the infertility problem, the surrogate mother simply carries the baby in her belly”.
She believes that what drives women to carry babies for other women is altruism even though there is money involved, and because of it, it is very clear to the surrogate mother that the baby doesn’t belong to her but to the couple.
Scientific advances will always bring up ethical questions and what we as a society must do is to analyze the pros and cons and then make the appropriate decisions.
Lili Marie Sardinas is a leader and she is entitled to fight and defend what she thinks is right.
What we must always do is respect her right to do so.