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We should have a morals forum, this one could fall under politics and religion. ^.^

Okay, sad as it may be I saw Dr. Phil today. We came in around lunch time and turned the TV on, and there it was.

Anyways, on to the story.

So this 'episode' was about surrogate mothers, in particular a woman who carried twins to term for another couple and then decided to keep the children once they were born.

You may or may not have heard of this, and for a decent arguement, we may need to go into a little more depth.

So, they (the couple) paid for both the embryo, the sperm and all the IVF stuff. This couple also paid the surrogate.

Now the surrogate has had the children and decided to keep them, but she's also said she doesn't see any reason why she should be paying the couple back for ANYTHING.

She says she's taken them back because she found out the mother had a mental illness and that fact was hidden from her, but all the professionals in the area who have analized the adoptive mother have said she was fit to raise a child. The surrogate isn't listening.

That's all for now, I'm sure you could find more on it if you googled it. It's caused quite an up-roar.

A) What would you do?
B) Do you think what Shelly (surrogate mother) did was right?
C) Any other thoughts?

She found out (in court, I'm not sure why they had to go to court) that the adoptive mother had something close to paranoid skitz. It's not diagnosed though, it doesn't quite fit into any categories.

It's been some time since the last incidence related to this mental condition (I think it's ten years, I can't quite recall) and even that was just speeding tickets (she thought someone was following her)

In any case, it's been a long time since anything that happened. As far as I'm aware, she's never had any breaks from reality.

As to the surrogate: She's had something like eight other children for other adoptive parents. She had no problems then. She's claiming she did a week of research (on the internet) and then made a judgement and took the children back. (She had already handed them over, the adoptive parents had had them for a little over a month.)

The surrogate never asked for an evaluation, and never looked at the adoptive mother and went 'oh that's not as severe as I thought'. She got a generalised broad idea of something that may or may not be happening and came to a decision.

Now, the adoptive mother had already been evaluated by her shrink and by social services. They both said she was competent.

When given a second chance (she'd had the babies four months) to have the adoptive mother evaluated or to look further into it she (the surrogate) refused, saying that babies had bonded with her and they were a part of her family now.

Anyways, I agree with you. The adoptive mother paid for a service that wasn't properly fulfilled. And now the surrogate is refusing to pay any money back or even considor giving the children back. It seems selfish to me, that she would take them back without further considoration as to how the adoptive parents would feel. If she'd thought it out as much as she claims, it would have occured to her that the mother might not be so bad.

The surrogate is also claiming she had nothing against people with mental illnesses, just against the fact that this wasn't disclosed to her. (Which is why she did so much research and then decided to take the children away...)