*subhead*Kids are gifts, not products.*subhead*

You have likely heard the surrogacy story that has recently made headlines all over the world. An Australian couple hired a Thai woman to carry their IVF embryos. She gave birth to twins, a boy with Down syndrome and a girl. The couple took the girl home to Australia and left the boy, named Gammy, in Thailand.

Gammy’s story is a heart breaker. But there are other stories where children of artificial reproductive technologies (ART) are treated more like expensive purchases rather than the gifts that they are. These stories have not gotten as much press.

I catalog some in Thai Surrogacy Scandal: The Difference Between Begotten and Made at the National Catholic Register.

Here are a few highlights of what parents that have used ART have said about their children:

“I paid for a gorgeous designer child with green eyes, olive skin and straight, blonde hair.”

“If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy…The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.”

“Our five frozen embryos, which we call our baby blastocysts, will remain in storage until we are ready to use them. … Now, we have some insurance against future infertility.”

Continue reading at the National Catholic Register>>

Rebecca Taylor blogs at Mary Meets Dolly