Children Of Single Parents.

There are plenty of single parents. Many by choice have a child without a spouse. Sushmita sen had adopted two girls , one after the court order without a husband. Why should it be controversial if a male wants to have a kid minus the wife? These are times for equality remember?

I agree with Rihana that the world is changing and a single parent can provide a good upbringing.

Surrogacy is here to stay and it is the individual choice.

 

Dear, I wasn't judging. I don't judge anyone known or unknown in real or virtual world. I am not perfect, so I don't have right to judge anyone. That was just my personal opinion. I hope I can express it without being judged.

 

Easy to say. It is difficult for someone who has their own biological children to understand why others go to such lengths to get their own instead of 'just adopting'.

 

Surrogacy has risks, like any pregnancy does. The drugs given for a surrogate to carry a child are the same that are given to women undergoing IVF to prepare their bodies for an embryo transfer. The vast majority of these people do not become very sick or have long-term effects as long as they are under proper medical care.
"Gestational carrier" is the current term used to describe a woman who carries a pregnancy for someone else. What is callous about this? It is considered a more respectful term than 'surrogate'.
There are negative aspects of commercial surrogacy, especially in poorer countries where the process is not well regulated and poor, uneducated women end up getting treated badly. The bad actors involve the medical professionals out to make a buck and sometimes the intended parents too who forget everything else in their desire to have a child. That is something that absolutely needs to be reformed, but the genie is out of the bottle as far as people availing of this option is concerned.

 

@joylokhi, very thought-provoking discussion.

I see no problem with non-traditional families. IMHO, as long as the child is brought up in a loving and supportive home, not much else matters.

What I have a problem with is the whole rent-a-womb business. But that's a topic for another day.

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I don't think the discussion here is about those people who try very hard to conceive, and find out that they can't conceive so opt for other options like surrogacy. I respect their need to have their biological child. but shah rukh khan already had two grown up biological children when he and his wife opted for third child through surrogacy.

 

I support surrogacy by single parents. That said, the major risk I see in this set-up is that should something untoward happen to the single parent before the child reaches adulthood, the child either faces being orphaned or being stuck in a difficult situation if the single parent is disabled. This is so especially when the surrogate mother is legally bound to give up all rights on the child after birth & have no emotional/physical contact with the child whatsoever. Essentially, the child is one parent away from being orphaned !

Even in cases like Tushar Kapoor, who has his family's support and help, this is a real risk because grandparents have a limited life span and the involvement of extended family is up in the air. But this risk is the same even when a single parent adopts. So it has nothing to do with surrogacy but more to do with single parenting.

This situation actually happened in the case of Michael Jackson. His 3 children were borne of surrogacy and he died when the oldest was only about 10 years old and youngest about 6 years. The children's lives were thrown into chaos due to a large extended family bickering over money issues and their guardianship. Eventually their legal guardianship and custody was given to MJ's 80+ mother who was/is unable to care for them fully. Thankfully, the children's surrogate mother, who happens to be a medical nurse, has continued to maintain ties with his family after his death. Reportedly, she provides some sort of moral support to the children even though she doesn't have any legal rights & doesn't cohabit with them. But it is very evident that the children have suffered for not having received any proper paternal/maternal support in their growing up years.

Bottom line - @joylokhi you are right in thinking that there are serious risks involved in single parent surrogacy (or even single parent adoption). But the real danger lies not to society but to the child itself in case the parent (father/mother) dies before the child attains adulthood. Single parent becomes a single point of failure in his/her child's life. So raising a child in a two-parent household may be preferred, if only in lowering such a risk. It is immaterial whether the two parents are same-sex or opposite-sex relationships.