OTTAWA, August 28, 2001 (LSN.ca) – Surrogate mothers should be allowed to charge for womb rental says Canadian Alliance MP Keith Martin. “If a woman wants to rent out her uterus for a fee, let her and that’s her moral decision, her ethical decision. Government shouldn’t be involved in that,” said Martin, who is a medical doctor.
Martin’s comments follow federal government proposals to introduce legislation as early as next year that would ban advertising for paid surrogates and criminalize commercial surrogacy. A recent Globe and Mail article revealed that Canadian women advertising surrogacy for a fee are attracting infertile Americans.
Karen Murawsky, National Affairs Director of Campaign Life Coalition, says that as a doctor Martin closes his eyes to the reality of the unborn. “There is another human being involved in surrogacy—the child—a consideration Dr.Martin seems to ignore,” says Murawsky. “The use of human beings as someone’s property is at issue here—there is no right to have children,“she stresses.
The legal complexity of commercial surrogacy was highlighted in a court battle yesterday when a California couple who hired a British woman to have a baby for them backed out of the contract when they found she was carrying twins. The couple had wanted any multiple embryos “selectively terminated,” but the woman claimed that the abortion clause in her contract had expired after 12 weeks gestation.
For Dr. Martin’s comments please see: https://globeandmail.ca/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/C/20010828/wxbabe?hub=homeBN&tf=tgam/realtime/fullstory.html&cf=tgam/realtime/config-neutral&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&slug=wxbabe&date=20010828&archive=RTGAM&site=Front&ad_page_name=breakingnews
For surrogacy court battle go to: https://dailynews.philly.com/content/daily_news/2001/08/24/national/WIRN24W.htm
See related LifeSite coverage: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/aug/010814.html#6