Australian Law-Surrogacy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Australian Law-Surrogacy - Essay Example One dilemma in surrogacy is the determination of parenthood. Currently, family and parenthood are defined biologically instead of social terms. This brings an issue in when determining who the legal parents of the child are, mainly between the surrogate mother and the social or foster parents of the child. In some countries like Australia, the law identifies the surrogate mother of a child as its legal mother and any surrogate arrangements that transfer custody of the child to others is rendered void. This brings issues especially if the surrogate mother had offered the services as commercial surrogacy and later claims the child (Tuininga, 240). The issue of parenthood arises because of the fact that the commissioning parents consider themselves to be the real parents of the child because their chromosomes were used. The surrogate mother can also claim parenthood because their biological components were used. (Tuininga, 240). This is even more serious were gestation was absent in the commissioning mother and hence the surrogate mother has some genetic relationship with the child. Temana (1108) observes that surrogate mothers normally try to maintain close and intimate relationship with the social parents of the child and this could put those marriages at risk of breaking. Zimmerman (123) states that there is also a high tendency that surrogacy makes problems underlying a marriage to surface for example, it brings into light infertility problem in one of the couple. (Tuininga, 240).  ... gate mothers normally try to maintain close and intimate relationship with the social parents of the child and this could put those marriages at risk of breaking. Zimmerman (123) states that there is also a high tendency that surrogacy makes problems underlying a marriage to surface for example, it brings into light infertility problem in one of the couple. Ragone (201) states that he commissioning parents go through a complicated process in order to adopt the child they wanted despite the fact that they could have paid heavily to have the child born and that one of them, mostly the father, could be the genetic father of the child. This is because in surrogacy, the father or both parents donate gametes that will be transferred clinically to the surrogate mother. Ironically, the law does not recognize them as the legal parents of the born child despite the fact that this child might not have any genetic relationship with the surrogate mother. One dilemma that emerges in surrogacy is t hat others do not accept it yet it is a healthy way of creating human life as compared to other methods like cloning. History In Australia, all forms of surrogacy were considered to be illegal and all states passed laws to make this a criminal offense. However, things have changed over the recent years. According to the Lawyers and Legal Services Australia (1), altruistic surrogacy has recently been legalized and this has been done in all Australia states, except for the state of Tasmania. However, commercial surrogacy is still considered by the law to be a criminal offense. These changes in the history of surrogacy in Australia were made possible by the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008. This Act changed the legality of altruistic surrogacy from 1st January, 2010. In its part,