I hope they hit the clinic involved with serious fines. They are completely at fault here.
I have an internet friend who has had something fairly similar happen to her. Their case is still ongoing, so I won’t post details. They did end up having to adopt their own child in order to settle the issue of custody, though.
I read (I think on Slate.com) that this happened before in Japan. I can’t remember if it was multiple times or one instance. Unlike the Savages, the Japanese woman elected to abort the fetus. The clinic didn’t tell the biological parents until after the fetus was aborted. The article raised some very interesting issues.
I work in the Fertility Care medical field. IANADoctor and I am pleased to report that this incident did NOT occur at one of the medical practices my company has a relationship with.
to a couple of Bricker’s and StGermain’spoints:
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there are specific, legally binding chain of custody documents typically in force (again, I can’t speak for this particular couple or fertility practice). So I would assume that even if this poor woman is carrying this baby, it has been clearly established that the embryo “belongs” to the couple that created it - regardless of who is carrying it to term. They may even have language in the agreement to cover surrogate/gestational carrier situations that enforce the fact that the original couple “has custody” of the embryo-baby-to-be.
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to my knowledge, couples assert who is supposed to receive phone calls from their fertility doctors and nurses. It was not discussed in the video clips I have seen, but it seems possible that the Savages simply asked that the calls be directed to him. Some couples prefer that because the women can be VERY stressed by IVF procedures and would rather their partner field most calls…
otherwise, yeah, a totally awful situation.
I can understand giving the kid back, but considering how much surrogate mothers get paid by some people to carry the kid, I find this situation quite disturbing. Certainly the clinic should foot the bill for the surrogacy the mother who bore this child is needing.
Agreed. I think they should also pay her for unwillingly being a surrogate for the other couple.
Oh hell yes!
I think it’s fantastic that the Savages are planning on giving the baby to its biological parents, rather than setting up a situation where lawyers make a lot of money fighting over the baby, and nobody (except perhaps the lawyers) really wins. I couldn’t blame them if they’d wanted to keep this baby, either but I don’t think it’s an in-your-face-fuck-you-its-my-uterus slam-dunk decision.
The bio-parents may not be able to get more viable embryos. Or they may, but hell, it’s a painful and unpredictable process. This might well have been their only chance to have a baby, and some fuckwad at the clinic screwed that up.
Now, the Savages are faced with having to have someone else carry their next child to term. While surrogacy isn’t all that rare, it’s pretty a tough process to find a surrogate, watch them go through a pregnancy with your child, etc.
I suspect this all happens rather oftener than we all know. And I know from personal (family member personal, anyway, not my own) that the clinics can be real sleazeball places.
After reading about this on cnn.com, I was mostly irritated that this woman was trying to have another baby after having two pregnancies with complications and premature deliveries. It just doesn’t seem like a responsible decision for her to try a fourth pregnancy.
But I’m totally on board with the OP. If I’m pregnant, the only way I’m going through with it is if I get a baby at the end of the process. Pregnancy sucks. If I were in this situation and I thought the law would be on the side of the bio-parents getting custody, I’d move out of the country.
But which is considered the biological mother? The one who carried and delivered the child, or the one contributed genetic material?
Quite. Remember the right to privacy is the only reason that abortions are allowed.
For child support laws to be consistent, they’d have to be ruled responsible, as sperm donors are. (The fact that you gave the sperm to fertilize the egg is considered implicit consent to the baby being born.) The only exception I’ve found is a certain Pennsylvania case that had to go all the way to their Supreme Court. And the donor only won because there had been a (verbal) contract. I have a hard time imagining a “if we implant in the wrong person, you aren’t responsible” clause in the fertility clinic contract.
Doesn’t seem like the decision took into consideration the effect on the other children, or the risks to the baby in the next pregnancy, or even to her own life, but if you truly believe that life begins at conception then they might believe they were obligated to give those embryos a chance regardless of all those dangers.
Having made that decision, to now find out that the mother is risking her life etc. for a baby that wasn’t even hers, is especially shocking.
Donating the embryos to another hopeful family might have seemed a safer choice but it might not have been one they felt they could live with.