In the La Libre newspaper, psychotherapist, Anne Schaub, speaks out against the “harm inflicted on children through surrogacy”, and deplores the fact that the child is overlooked in debates focusing on “a desire to have a child, generosity, solidarity” and money. Basing her argument on aspects of human science and neuroscience, she states that, “creating a baby for someone else poses the risk of suffering and could trigger a relational disorder in the child”.
The circumstances surrounding conception, pregnancy and birth are major issues for the unborn child. Hence, “facilitating or organising pregnancy/parenthood from conception to birth creates emotional baggage for the child that is synonymous with rupture and obscure parentage”. Furthermore, separating the child from his/her birth mother “triggers a sense of abandonment in the child, possibly culminating in life-long anguish, depending on the context and extent of the feelings involved”. Although a woman may choose not to become attached to the child she is carrying, the child “cannot switch off”. For a child, this is all about “a programmed response for survival, an unavoidable and incontestable biophysiological and psychological mechanism” that no surrogacy agreement or any adult wishing with all his/her heart to become a parent can diminish or destroy. The experience of maternal detachment, right from birth, “can affect the child’s innate feeling of safety and may cause him/her to question his/her very being”.
Last but not least, the psychotherapist refutes any connection made between surrogacy and adoption. With adoption, a child often has psychological work to do but he/she understands that “his/her parents have tried to compensate through adoption for any shortcomings the child may have experienced in life”. Conversely, the deepest wound that a child born through surrogacy will have to overcome is knowing that his/her parents ruptured the bond between him/her and his/her biological mother – something that an adopted child never has to face”.
Anne Schaub therefore calls on society to “bring the child out of the shadows” and condemn surrogacy. “Because creating a child through surrogacy poses the risk of causing suffering and a relational disorder in the child in question”.
La libre, Anne Schaub (27/05/2017)