Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Surrogacy: A Knot That Can’t Be Untangled
Surrogacy: A Knot That Can’t Be Untangled
Jul 8, 2025 2:35 AM

I’ll say it again: surrogacy is a bad idea. It’s bad for the child, it’s bad for women, it’s bad for families. Even when everything goes “well,” it’s still a situation where a woman has been used for rental of her womb for 9 months. Using a fellow human being’s body because you want something is wrong, even if you pay them.

Tennessee’s state Supreme Court is trying to untangle a knotted mess of surrogacy nonsense – which is made all the more horrible because this isn’t simply a point of law: it’s about a baby. Here are the not-so-simple facts:

Unmarried Italian citizens—”L.G.” the “intended mother,” and “A.T.” the “intended father,” paid more than $73,000 to pay for “expenses” and “pain and suffering” to “J.J.E.,” the surrogate. She agreed to be artificially inseminated with A.T.’s sperm, to gestate any babies conceived, and then surrender the child and her parental rights to the intended parents. In other words, the baby would be the biological child of the intended father and the surrogate mother. In Tennessee such contracts are called “traditional surrogacy,” in contrast to circumstances in which the surrogate mother is not biologically related to the baby to which she gives birth, which is known as a “gestational surrogacy.”

J.J.E. became pregnant after being inseminated. She carried the baby. Shortly before, and pursuant to the surrogacy contract, the parties applied to the Juvenile Court terminate the parental rights of J.J.E., which was granted.

Then, just when everything seemed to be going so well, nature took over. J.J.E. asked if she could breastfeed; this wasn’t in the contract, but the “parents” consented. And she bonded with the baby, which is hardly surprising, since she IS the biological mother. She hired an attorney to get out of the surrogacy contract, and here we are, in the Tennessee Supreme Court. The legal e?

A.T., the intended and biological father, is a legal parent of the child, with full rights of visitation, custody, and obligations of support.

J.J.E., the surrogate and biological mother, is also a legal parent with full rights to pursue custody, visitation, and obligations of support.

Custody, visitation, support, and other such issues will be made in the child’s “best interests,” not based on the terms of the surrogacy contract.

The intended mother, L.G., is a legal stranger to the child.

Surrogacy contracts are enforceable in Tennessee generally, but clauses that violate public policy, as occurred here, will not be enforced.

One can only imagine the chaos and discord that will shape this poor child’s future. While the legal issues have been settled, the family and parental issues seem almost insurmountable. How will these people explain all of this to this little girl? How in the world will she untangle and make sense of her parents, her relationships with them, and their relationships with each other? Even if you are pro-surrogacy, you cannot miss the knotted mess that this case is.

Read “A Case of Surrogacy’s Gordian Knot” at Catholic Lane.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Review: Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers began Witness, the classic account of his time in the American Communist underground, with the declaration: “In 1937, I began, like Lazarus, the impossible return.” The line was most of all a deep recognition of the power of God to redeem what was once dead. Witness was a landmark account of the evils of Communism but most importantly a description of the bankruptcy of freedom outside of the sacred. “For Chambers, God was always the prime mover in...
Mere Comments: The Neo-Anabaptist Temptation
Today at Mere Comments I highlight what I’m calling the “Neo-Anabaptist temptation.” Check it out. ...
Samuel Gregg: Europe’s Broken Economies
Acton’s Research Director in the American Spectator: Europe’s Broken Economies By Samuel Gregg During September this year, much of Europe descended into mild chaos. Millions of Spaniards and French went on strike (following, of course, their return from six weeks vacation) against austerity measures introduced by their governments. Across the continent, there are deepening concerns about possible sovereign-debt defaults, stubbornly-high unemployment, Ireland’s renewed banking woes, and the resurgence of right-wing populist parties (often peddling left-wing economic ideas). Indeed, the palpable...
Global Warming Consensus Alert: KILL ‘EM ALL
I’ll admit – it’s been a long time since I’ve posted a Global Warming Consensus Alert because, frankly, any “consensus” that existed was blown apart by the release of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit e-mails, which revealed a whole bunch of underhanded activity on the part of scientists promoting the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. What’s the point anymore? The unshakeable climate “consensus” has been shown to be the fraud that it always was, and the catastrophic climate...
Trailer: Doing the Right Thing
The Colson Center for Christian Worldview is preparing to release a new study DVD this fall titled, Doing the Right Thing: A Six-Part Exploration of Ethics. The DVD is designed as a resource for small-group studies and features leading thinkers who explore the need for ethical behavior in the marketplace, public square, political life and other areas. Hosts Brit Hume, Chuck Colson, Dr. Robert George and a distinguished panel — including Acton’s Rev. Robert Sirico and Michael Miller — undertake...
German Freedom and the Danger of Socialism
In this week’s Acton Commentary, I remember German reunification and reflect on its relevance for the present. Twenty years ago this Sunday, East and West Germany reunited, capping one of the most extraordinary transformations in modern history. Communism in the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites had collapsed; the oppressed nations of Europe rejoined the “free world.” My generation was the last to straddle the two worlds, pre- and post-Soviet Union. When I was in elementary and high school,...
Public Accountability for Public Officials
Via TechDirt: …a judge has tossed out the wiretapping claims pointing out that there was no expectation of privacy out in public. “Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public,” the judge wrote. “When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation.” There’s more here and here on the question of law enforcement and ‘citizen...
A Federal Tax Receipt
There’s an old saying to the effect: “Show me a man’s checkbook and I’ll show you what’s important to him.” It may not be quite the same as a checkbook, but NPR’s Planet Money passes along what a receipt from the federal government might look like for an average taxpayer (HT): As Third Way, who put together the taxpayer receipt, argues: An electorate unschooled in basic budget facts is a major obstacle to controlling the nation’s deficit, not to mention...
Ecumenical Witness or Ecumenical Tyranny?
Robert Joustra, writing on the website of the Canadian think tank Cardus, has published a thoughtful review of Jordan Ballor’s Ecumenical Babel: Confusing Economic Ideology and the Church’s Social Witness. The reviewer understands that when, … controversial social science infiltrates ecclesial confessions, twin dangers promising the integrity of the Gospel, and splitting the church on political and economic issues. Ecumenical superstructures claiming to speak with ecclesial authority on technical matters worry me, even when technical experts are enlisted. The point...
Questions on Work and Intellectual Development
Carl Trueman has a lengthy reflection and asks some pertinent and pressing questions on the nature of work and human intellectual development. Recalling his job at a factory as a young man in the 1980s, Trueman writes concerning those who were still at their positions on the line when he had moved on: Their work possessed no intrinsic dignity: it was unskilled, repetitive, poorly paid, and provided no sense of achievement. Yes, it gave them a wage; but not a...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved