Can We Give Birth to a Tendulkar or an Einstein Through Surrogacy
Surrogacy, Present Challenges and Future Probabilities
The tech development in the 21st century has placed human-beings into a unique world. The life in the previous decades was entirely distant from ours.
Similarly, the 19th century industrial revolution transformed our life from only being a farmer or a trader. During that time, revolutions have come through transforming non-living resources such as fossil fuels. The inventions of the past-times never interfered with any species.
But, today we face consequences of such advances. The changes were wonderful; it eased our life, brought developments that weren’t possible. However, we failed in projecting outcomes or knowingly ignored them. For example, no one in the 20th century talked about climate change when the fossil fuel was dominating our daily lives.
Now we can not reverse it.
The biggest talk now is the damage we did in the past.
However, we believe in the never-ending betterment of human-existence on earth, and the intelligent minds are constantly working to give it a new direction. Every day, we hear about a potential development that will change the way we live forever.
One such change that was earlier moving with a tortoise-speed has now taken a rabbit’s pace — development in biotechnology. Human birth through surrogacy is altering our lives every day.
Prior to this, I have only heard about it in Indian mythological tales, where a God would fulfill her devotee’s wish of a warrior-like child. The devotee would get a child in her lap without intercourse. Miracle, right? not anymore.
Surrogacy could make men powerful, as it is giving them the ability to alter human life.
Surrogacy, a process where an embryo (formed by male sperm and mother’s egg) developed in a lab, fertilized through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), then placed into a female’s body for a regular pregnancy. It comes in two forms-
- Gestational, where the surrogate mother is implanted with an egg and sperm;
- Traditional surrogacy, where the surrogate’s own egg is used.
1978 saw the birth of first surrogacy, and since then the numbers have tripled and it has become a booming industry. It has several advantages-
- It is a blessing for parents who can not conceive by natural methods,
- Gives an upliftment to women who are not financially stable, and
- It is a profitable venture for biotechnologist.
The industry has an estimated worth of $6bn a year. If we believe the figures in the UK alone, surrogate births have tripled from 121 in 2011 to 368 in 2018.
The industry is developing by targeting financially and socially vulnerable women to become surrogate mother by the sums of money to offer.
In Ukraine, a surrogate mother can earn up to $20000 by agreeing to give birth to the surrogate baby.
However, it also brings along challenges as —
- Parents deny accepting the surrogate children if they are born with health issues, as a result, surrogate mothers who agreed to give birth for money ends up having a child they never planned.
- In other cases, surrogate mother becomes so attached that they don’t want to give the baby to legal parents.
The problems are so prevalent that we have movies on surrogacy. One such Bollywood movie is — Mimi, that talks about both the above mentioned challenges, where a wannabe actor agrees to deliver through surrogacy for a Western couple. The story moves ahead with the above complications in the people’s life.
Do We Know Everything About Surrogacy?
We don’t still know the difference in life of a surrogate child from a natural one. We don’t have a data. We have never seen an analysis on the life of children till death between them and those produced naturally. It is yet to come. Hopefully, we may see in our lifetime. That data can bring significant improvements in human birth process.
But surrogacy also has another unexplored side, which can transform the human lives eternally.
Soon scientists would claim — I will inject this liquid into sperm and your newborn would live a king’s life, or would be the next eminent scientist.
It should not surprise us if a biotech company would store sperms of the most successful people of the century, categorizing them into a
- Philanthropic sperm
- Leader sperm
- Scientist sperm
Or, they will ask — What life you wish for your child —
- Maradonian
- Albert Einsteen’s
- Gandhian
- Warren Buffet’s
Imagine, before birth, we will know who our child can become?
The Curse That This Development can Bring
As the old saying goes, a development will also come with its bane. History has proven that humans are unintelligent in adjudging the effects of any development over life.
Who knows the blunders by such scientist will produce beggars as well.
Or,
Something that we couldn’t imagine, our life could become like a sci-fi novel where a humanoid machine will take control over man’s life.
Probably, we won’t be there to see the aftereffects of surrogacy.
The only thing I could think of that finance companies will introduce a surrogate insurance — If a child is not born to be Albert Einstein, then parents can sue the company and claim the damage.
Also, this development can widen that equality gap between the rich and poor. The rich will become richer since they could buy the sperms of great people, but poor won’t have that money to buy an Einstein or a Tendulkar.
All said, biotechnology holds the future of human life. We don’t yet realize how it can form a mélange to further advance birth process, but no one can deny the probability of such advancements in the future.
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