Gestational surrogates help couples and sometimes single people build their families when they can’t carry a child and give birth themselves. While in most cases, this results in a healthy baby who gets a loving home, things don’t always turn out that way.
Surrogacy contracts between surrogates and the would-be parents help protect those parents from the possibility that a surrogate will decide to keep the baby, terminate the pregnancy or do something else that wasn’t agreed to. However, these contracts also need to protect the surrogate from the possibility that the intended parents will change their mind about the arrangement either during the pregnancy or after the birth.
Why prospective parents may change their minds
A common reason why a couple may change their mind about becoming parents is that they break up. They may decide that they don’t want to co-parent a child and would rather go their separate ways and have no further contact.
Sometimes, people will decide after learning early in the pregnancy that there’s a fetal abnormality that is likely to result in a serious medical condition that they want the pregnancy terminated. Obviously, this is a serious and sensitive issue that all parties should be in agreement on. It should also be addressed in the surrogacy contract.
In some cases, doctors may not learn about a serious medical problem until late in the pregnancy when termination isn’t an option or after the baby is born. A surrogate needs to have contractual protection that a couple won’t just refuse to take the baby.
While these last two scenarios seem particularly harsh, they can happen. As one law professor noted, some people “view both the surrogate and fetus or infant through the lens of Amazon culture: market products to order, control, cancel, or return when the products fail to meet our expectations.”
Surrogates need to protect their rights
What’s critical is that all parties agree on terms with which they’re comfortable. As a surrogate, you don’t have to agree to terminate a pregnancy if told to by the other parties. Neither do you have to agree to keep the baby unless you want to if the would-be parents change their mind for any reason.
It’s crucial to have experienced legal guidance when negotiating a surrogacy contract. This will help you protect your rights.