SURROGATE MATERNITY: ONE GETS HAPPINESS THE OTHER BIG MONEY

Aysor
March 11 2010
Armenia

This year Lilit has entered school for the first time. Her parents,
Rita and Mayis Gasparyans notice that their daughter brought happiness
to their family.

The couple was unable to bring children for years. 7 years ago seeing
that all the measures were in vain decided to find a woman who will
brig a children for them, they told.

That’s how Lilit was born. 7 years ago the idea of surrogate mother was
not developed in our republic yet. Chief Obstetrician-Gynecologist
of the RA Ministry of Healthcare, Professor Razmik Abrahamyan
mentioned that the artificial impregnation is used since 2003 by
the law that acts since July of that year, and it is available for
all the population. Today together with the artificial impregnation
also the institute of surrogate maternity develops. The impregnated
ovigerm taken from the couple is put into another woman’s, surrogate
mother’s womb.

There are several medical institutions that realize this kind of
impregnation. There are also few experts that officially take care
of the legal side of deal.

The doctors mention that till now our society does not completely
accept the idea of surrogate maternity. Many people prefer finding
surrogate mothers abroad, and not to let the relatives know about it.

"It is possible to use your own physiological abilities in favor
of another family. The surrogate mother too should be ready for it
psychologically and morally. She understands that she doesn’t give the
child her ovigerm, she is just the environment where the impregnated
embryo develops", expert Davit Mkhitaryan informs.

They confess that here it is difficult to find surrogate mothers who
conscious is enough developed to understand that aside of getting
money she is also giving happiness to another family.

If in Ukraine and Russia they get 50 – 70 thousand US dollars for
the deal, in US they get 100 – 110 thousand, and in Armenia 20 –
30 thousand dollars for 9 months.

The expert-doctor says that the surrogate mother as a rule becomes
a family friend, in some cases the relations of the family and the
surrogate mother end just in a second after the child is born.

Even though the child is called to be the basis for the family, the
Armenian Apostolic Church treats the artificial impregnation with
stipulations and denies the idea of the surrogate mother.

Thus, the church says that the "surrogate maternity" is not
acceptable as the surrogate mother at the end becomes the mother
of that child, for she is carries that child. On the other hand it
is very important who the parents are. Only in special cases is the
artificial impregnation accepted by the church, after the examination
of the Bishop, when the real reason of the barrenness is found out. The
Bible says that the aim of the marriage, after all, is not bringing
children, but is the life lived together.

The doctor who is involved in an organization that is busy with the
issues of surrogate maternity contradicts saying that it’s not just if
one family has many children while the other one has none. Besides that
the doctor recalled the statistics which prove that the prostitutes
are healthier than the women of Armenian families as the prostitutes
attend to doctors more frequently, while the family woman doesn’t
even remember when for the last time she attended a gynecologist.

And who are the surrogate mothers? It is very important for her not
to be a prostitute. She should be 18 – 35 years old, should have at
least one child given birth by herself.

If the in Europe the surrogate mother lives in a better conditions
in her own house, the surrogate mother in Armenia needs special
conditions. The couples that want to become parents by the help of
the surrogate mothers give her a separate home in another region for
9 months, they pay her 100 000 AMD monthly and provide her with a food
full of vitamins, they provide her also with comfortable conditions of
transportation, they hire a taxi or a driver for her as the surrogate
mother is not allowed to use buses or mini buses.

After all said above we get sure for one more time that the law in our
country is written not for the ordinary citizens, as, hardly a family
that lives by the day’s bread can allow himself to bring children
through surrogate mothers. Nevertheless our country is not Holland,
where the surrogate maternity is realized on beneficiary bases.

We have to hope only that the level of barrenness will not be too high,
even though the information published by the Ministry of Healthcare
proves something else.

If the reproductive generation consisting of 70 thousand gives
45 thousand generation, we can imagine what kind of depression of
birthrate will be in our country after a few years.

However there is another law as well, the selling of the ovigerm,
for which the women get 500 up to 1500 US dollars. And the woman in
a year can sell around 4 ovigerms.