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Feb. 16, 2007
Giving the greatest gift of all
Surrogate mothers – Jewish or not – help infertile couples
attain their dream of a family.
SORIYA DANIELS
Candy Grover, a Reform Jewish woman from Pepper Pike, Ohio, had
experienced terrible complications in both of her pregnancies and
her children were born with serious medical problems. Yet she and
her husband yearned for another child.
"Rachel," an observant Jewish woman from Brooklyn, N.Y.,
who desperately wanted a family, was born without a uterus. Both
women looked into the possibility of surrogacy – that is, having
another woman carry their genetic baby to term.
Candy and Brent Grover decided to use a surrogate after Candy's
two pregnancies ended prematurely, resulting in her first son being
born with underdeveloped lungs and her second son with cerebral
palsy.
"I wanted to know what it was like to have a healthy baby,"
said Candy.
Twelve years ago, the couple's surrogate, Judy Pietsyzk, gave the
Grovers not one, but two healthy (twin) babies. Today, Candy considers
Judy her best friend.
"It was awkward when Judy called two weeks after the birth
to see the twins," Candy admitted. "They were our babies,
but it was her pregnancy."
Candy and Brent are open with their kids and the community about
their use of a surrogate. "We're Mommy and Daddy, and you came
out of Judy's tummy," is what she told her son and daughter.
To find their surrogate, the Grovers placed an ad in the Cleveland
Jewish News. They did not have a problem getting the approval of
their rabbi, Rabbi Fred Eisenberg of Temple Israel Ner Tamid. In
fact, Eisenberg even screened potential surrogates for them.
The Grovers were very lucky all around: Unlike most couples, who
can pay up to $70,000 for the entire process, the Grovers paid less
than $10,000. Their health insurance paid for the in-vitro cycles,
which normally run approximately $10,000 apiece, and Judy, the surrogate,
was paid a modest amount to cover her expenses and losses. There
was also no agency fee, since the Grovers found the surrogate mother
themselves. And they saved money by instructing an attorney to draw
up a simple contract, instead of a more complex document.
For anyone considering the surrogacy option, Candy recommended finding
a health insurance plan that covers in-vitro fertilization before
embarking on this process, as this will drastically reduce costs.
For Rachel, the young woman without a uterus, surrogacy was a little
more complicated. In Israel, surrogacy is permitted, state-regulated
and under the aegis of the two chief rabbis. In the United States
and Canada, there is no consensus among rabbis about the use of
surrogates. This is particularly the case among Orthodox rabbis.
Rachel and her husband wanted their own genetic children, but she
wouldn't move ahead with surrogacy without rabbinical permission.
As an Orthodox Jew of Syrian descent, she didn't want any trouble
for her children later on when they went to yeshivah or shul or
when they wanted to get married.
Eight years ago, Rachel became the first person in the United States
to receive permission from an Orthodox rabbi to proceed with a gestational
surrogate.
"I have letters and proof for whenever I need it," she
said. "I wanted it documented that my girls can marry a Kohain
and my son can be bar mitzvah, and that he could have a bris without
questions."
Her story has a happy ending. Her community accepts her and her
three children, ages four to seven, who were all born from the womb
of the same surrogate mother. "I wouldn't keep it a secret
or hide it," Rachel related. "I wouldn't go live in California
[where the surrogate mother resided] and come back with a kid."
Other Orthodox couples are not as lucky as Rachel, mainly because
most rabbis have more questions than answers.
"It's not a question of rabbis not wanting to rule on it. It's
just a part of Jewish law that they're unfamiliar with," explained
Kenneth Brander, rabbi of the Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida.
The leader of a 700-family Orthodox shul is one of the few rabbis
specifically trained in this area. Later this year, he will become
a dean at Yeshivah University, charged with establishing an institute
there to educate other rabbis on the confounding issues associated
with infertility.
Searching for a surrogate to carry the baby is not the first thing
that you do, said Brander. This is the remaining option when everything
else is exhausted, he explained.
The Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly Committee on Jewish
Law and Standards notes that surrogacy entails serious potential
problems that would make it inappropriate in some cases. That is
why, said Rabbi Stephen Weiss of Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in
New York, surrogacy is "permissable but not required"
of an infertile couple trying to fulfil the biblical obligation
to procreate.
"There are very real concerns about exploitation of the surrogate
and the potential risk that the child will be rejected by the parents
should it be born disabled," he said. "But research has
shown that these circumstances arise in only a small minority of
cases, and they can be addressed by civil law."
Nishmat, the women's online information centre, which is a project
of the Jerusalem Centre for Advanced Jewish Study for Women, insists
that each case must be discussed individually with a rabbi well-versed
in this subject.
While some rabbis hold that the great benefit of providing a child
to an infertile couple is decisive, others voice concerns about
potential exploitation of the surrogate.
"You can't treat the surrogate like she's being used. She's
not hired help," said Rachel, who maintains a close friendship
with her surrogate.
Rachel found her surrogate through a Los Angeles-based agency, the
Centre for Surrogate Parenting. She was looking for someone who
had been a surrogate before, so the woman would know what to expect,
and was willing to do it again. An agency also provides a social
worker to help the parties work out sticky situations, like who
gets to hold the baby first.
When the couple wanting a baby uses an agency, the surrogate chooses
whom she wants to do this for, not the other way around. However,
the intended parents can veto any potential surrogate. It's a matter
of supply and demand, explained Rachel. "There are more needy
couples than willing surrogates."
The issue of paying someone to have a baby for you poses some thorny
issues in Jewish law. Former chief rabbi of Great Britain Immanuel
Jakobovits is vociferously against surrogacy for this very reason.
He has declared that "to use another person as an 'incubator'
and then take from her the child she carried and delivered for a
fee is a revolting degradation of maternity and an affront to human
dignity."
Other rabbis have gotten around this by insisting that payment to
a surrogate be a reasonable sum for her services, which is separate
and distinct from payment for a child. It is permissible, they say,
to pay a woman for time engaged in medical, psychological and legal
procedures, to reimburse her for lost wages and to pay restitution
for physical restrictions due to pregnancy, as well as for medical
risks undertaken and for the use of her womb.
The complexity of the issues involved in infertility treatments,
including surrogacy, led to the inauguration of the widely accepted
Puah Institute in Israel, which forged consensus among all the country's
major rabbinic authorities.
"The real question is to determine who is the halachic
[by Jewish law] mother," said Rabbi Gideon Weitzman, head of
the English-speaking section of Puah. That seems to be the lingering
question for most rabbis, although the sole position approved by
the Rabbinical Assembly Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is
that the religious status of a child follows that of the birth mother
in cases involving surrogacy, as in all other cases, such as when
a mother gives birth to a child using donor eggs or embryos.
Brander would likely allow a surrogacy arrangement "following
the strictest parameters of halachah, which would indicate that
it is the host [not the genetic egg giver] that's the mother."
Therefore, he insists on converting the baby to Judaism if the surrogate
mother is not Jewish.
Brander recognizes, however, that there are different approaches
as to who is considered the mother according to Jewish law: "Some
say both, some say neither, some say the genetic giver, but most
say the host mother," he said.
Maternity is important in determining the religion of the child,
whom the child can marry, mourning obligations and lineage. It can
also cause serious complications in the case of a Jewish surrogate
wanting to keep the child after birth, since, according to Jewish
law, the baby would likely be deemed hers and the intended father's.
This issue has arisen in Israel, where on occasion the surrogates,
single Jewish women, decide to keep the baby. (Married Jewish women
are forbidden to serve as surrogates due to the potential for mamzerut
– illegitimate children – being born. The marital status
of a non-Jewish surrogate, however, has no bearing, since Jewish
law does not apply to her.)
"A lot of people who want to follow Jewish law are struggling
and searching, and not only in the Orthodox community," said
Brander. "I get phone calls from couples in the Conservative
and Reform communities because people want to make sure their children
are Jewish."
Still, all of that research and effort is "definitely worth
it," declared Rachel, "because I have my family now."
Soriya Daniels is a freelance writer based in Aventura,
Fla.
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