In this age of pervasive alienation and loneliness, it is worth remembering the root of all human connection and the template for human love: that is, the mother-child dyad.
That connection begins in the womb, and modern science has brought to light the many different forms in which the in utero connection manifests itself, whether in epigenetics, microchimerism or a dozen other ways. Newborns come into the world recognizing their mother’s voice and scent, and the hormones of attachment produced in both the mother and the neonate cement the bond built over nine months of pregnancy.
Arguably, all human social connections are derived, one way or the other, from this original connection of mother and baby. The dyad is, if you will, the very first human society we join. When this foundational attachment is rendered weak or insecure, or is severed, lasting damage to the child’s ability to form relationships with others may result.
That damage, in turn, may affect societal levels of trust, cooperation and fidelity, as well as societal levels of alienation, loneliness and anomie. In a sense, we — as individuals and as societies — depend on mothers to make us fit for human society.
Of course, sometimes tragic circumstances do not permit the unfolding of the mother-baby relationship, such as when the mother dies in or after childbirth. There may be other situations, such as heavy drug use by the mother, that necessitate deviation. But in general, society is founded upon healthy mother-baby attachment, and we truck with that relationship at our peril.
Unfortunately, we so invisibilize and therefore devalue this foundation of our society that we are willing to play fast and loose with our moorings.
For example, in the U.S. and in the U.K., the babies of female prisoners are routinely separated from their mothers right after birth, even though more than 60% of female prisoners have been convicted of non-violent offenses.
“It was worse than giving birth,” said one woman, describing the separation from her newborn. “That was the hardest pain of my life. I’ve never felt pain like it … It was in my chest, in my heart. Even in my belly.”
In most countries, such at-birth separation does not occur, and mothers and babies are held together in special units. Separating these mothers and babies is a policy choice, not a necessity.
There are other examples.
We are so ready to jettison and even erase the mother-child bond that when adoptions are finalized, states provide new, amended birth certificates on which only the names of the adoptive parents are inscribed. Rather than even acknowledging the woman who gave birth to the child by providing an additional line that bears her name, she is completely erased as if she had never existed.
While this is defended as an issue of privacy, it is not a necessity, and many believe this omission is wrong. Organizations such as the Adoptee Rights Coalition, argue that Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child asserts that children have the right to know who their biological parents are or were, and that every individual born should be afforded that right under their country’s laws.
But it is in the matter of surrogacy that the worst excesses of a system that devalues the mother-child bond occur.
I state up front that I am a foe of surrogacy. Even so, I know that there is no longer any U.S. state that bans the practice, although four states — Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska and Louisiana — thankfully have severe limitations on it.
Most other states have taken a laissez-faire approach to surrogacy, which has created mind-boggling mischief that offends even the most basic common sense. For example, obtaining a child through surrogacy has none of the guardrails and safety precautions of adoption. If you wish to adopt a child in the United States, you and every member of your household will undergo a thorough background check, and it will be required that a social worker make several home visits to evaluate the situation into which the child will be placed.
None of these checks are required in surrogacy. Predictably, convicted sex offenders and pedophiles, who would never in a million years be allowed to adopt or foster a child, are perfectly free to obtain a child through surrogacy.
The most recent case is from Pennsylvania, where Brandon Mitchell, a registered sex offender, obtained a child through surrogacy. Said York County District Attorney Tim Barker, “I thoroughly appreciate the concerned and outraged emotions expressed by many that a loophole exists in the law to allows a registered sex offender to become a parent through surrogacy without the same intense scrutiny, accountability and judicial oversight mandated for the adoption process. This is an issue ripe for review and remedy by our Pennsylvania Legislature.”
That’s the understatement of the year; the Florida legislature is already contemplating the “Protecting Kids from Predators Pursuing Parenthood Act” that would “bar sexual predators in the state from obtaining children via surrogacy, adoption or foster care.” This is a very low bar that all states should be actively considering, including Utah.
But there’s a larger problem here, of which the Mitchell case is but a symptom.
In addition to all of these serious concerns, consider also that in the Mitchell case, the mother who carried the child was completely erased; her name was not even on the state’s original birth certificate for the child, as if the child had appeared on Earth without the existence of his mother or, indeed, any mother at all.
Policy-wise, we have it all upside down: the mother of the child — the woman who carried and delivered the child — should never have been erased, and she should have had the right to demand that there be a background check of the intended parents.
The exchange of money doesn’t trump a mother’s responsibility for her child, and neither do genes. The woman who carried the child has established the child’s humanity, and her right to safeguard the child on the basis of this real, tangible relationship should be preserved, as should her right to be named on the original birth certificate as the mother of the child.
As University of Colorado law professor Jennifer Hendricks explains: “The person who gives birth to a child is that child’s initial family. She is therefore also the person who should make initial decisions about who else should join that family. ... Genes alone are not enough [to] claim connection with a child.”
Neither is money sufficient to claim connection, as in the case of surrogacy. Surrogacy contracts should be made legally unenforceable, and the relinquishment of a child in surrogacy must be placed under the same legal framework as adoption. This is precisely the current legal approach taken by the United Kingdom with regard to surrogacy.
Helen Gibson of the UK NGO Surrogacy Concern, puts it best: “Surrogacy is not a child centered act. Removing a child from their birth mother and primary safeguarding is cruel, unethical and as we see in cases such as this, potentially enabling child abuse. There is no safe or ethical form of surrogacy which could be delivered by ‘better regulation’: we need a global ban on surrogacy for all and we need it now. Children must come first.”
And it’s important to get these policy choices straight now.
Consider that Chinese scientists are hoping to create a pregnancy robot, which will carry around your pod baby and speak to it, in a simulacrum of a mother’s body and voice. There would be no mother-baby dyad at all in that case, no human connection at the beginning of life, and the erasure of the child’s mother would be effected in full. Is this really in the baby’s best interest?
Is any of this in the baby’s best interest? Shouldn’t the interests of our children come before our adult interests? Shouldn’t it be “them before us”? And if it is not, what hope is there for our collective human future?