Altruistic Surrogacy

The altruistic surrogacy is completely based on humanity. It is beyond self-benefits rather it is self-satisfaction. Altruistic surrogacy is opted by the surrogate to do the welfare for other infertile couples. Altruistic Surrogacy requires tremendous emotional strength and a scarifying mentality. Altruistic surrogacy can be defined as the arrangement of surrogacy without any compensation paying to the surrogate for carrying the baby in her womb. Intended parents only need to pay medical expenses for the pregnancy. This type of surrogacy is also termed as “identified surrogacy”. This type of surrogacy usually conducted between family members, close friends, and relatives. Therefore, the surrogate is well known to the intended parents. Moreover, altruistic surrogacy is usually conducted under the independent surrogacy process.

In independent surrogacy, intended parents do not take any assistance from surrogacy service providers. They take all the responsibilities to conduct the surrogacy, including coordination with all the professionals, searching for medical facilities, etc. In this situation, the intended parent and surrogate may directly contact a legal representative to complete the surrogacy process. While in some cases of altruistic surrogacy, both intended parent and surrogate do not want to involve third-party support and ignore legal and medical process require to conduct surrogacy.
The usual cost involvement in altruistic surrogacy is very nominal, which usually include
• Medical costs, such as the embryo transmission or artificial insemination, fertility medications, and delivery charges
• Egg or sperm donation charges if requires
• Fees of the legal representative
• Counseling charges
• Additional fees including doctor's appointments, travel charges, or expenses required to taking care of surrogate during the medical follow up in the gestational period and delivery time.

Altruistic surrogacy process has both pros and cons. The advantages of altruistic surrogacy include it is less expensive, as no service charges paid to the surrogate, perfect matching, the intended parents may have more mental peace during the whole surrogacy process as they know surrogate, altruistic surrogacy is legally accepted in many countries.

The disadvantages of this process are also enough to think about before accepting altruistic surrogacy. identified surrogacy may cause unnecessary mental pressure and negative impact between surrogate, intended parents, and born child in the future. In an altruistic surrogacy, a surrogate may have a feeling of exploitation as no compensation involved. Intended parents pay no service charges to the surrogate and may feel hesitant to request something related to gestation. The understanding and relationship between parents and surrogates are the main deciding factors for the pros and cons related to altruistic surrogacy.

International Commercial Surrogacy

International Commercial Surrogacy now becomes common in countries where commercial surrogacy banned. For example, many states in America have banned surrogacy. Therefore, intended parents from any such American States can contact surrogacy centers located in Mexico, Vietnam, or Kenya for commercial surrogacy. The whole arrangement is termed as International Commercial Surrogacy. The term 'commercial' is used in such type of surrogacy, as the women who agree to carry a baby for them get compensation for this job.

In international commercial surrogacy, a proper legal agreement has been made between the intended parents and the surrogate. Legal personnel discuss all the written points in the contract and provide the understanding of each point to both intended parents and the surrogate to mitigate all ethical issues before signing the contract.
Surrogacy service providers play an important role in international commercial surrogacy. Intended parents contact surrogacy centers for the right match. Therefore, surrogates are a completely unknown person for intended parents. Surrogacy service providers select the surrogates from the huge data pool by matching with intended parents' criteria.

In international commercial surrogacy, the surrogacy service provider takes the responsibilities of coordination and communication between clients, surrogates, and other professionals involved in the process, including, doctors, psychologists, medical counselors, legal personnel, etc to pursue the process smoothly. Personal contact between intended parents and surrogates is discouraged to reduce the emotional complications.
• International commercial surrogacy is an expensive process than altruistic surrogacy, as a huge compensation need to pay to commercial surrogates.
• In International commercial surrogacy, no personal relationship present between intended parents and surrogate, whereas altruistic surrogacy is based on identified surrogacy.
• Surrogacy service providers play an important role in international commercial surrogacy, but intended parents who opt for altruistic surrogacy, usually avoid such service provider's assistance.
• Strong legal and ethical concerns are maintained in International commercial surrogacy depending upon the country-specific law. In an altruistic surrogacy, strict legal aspects are not followed. In addition, no ethical concern also considered in altruistic surrogacy.
• There is no personal relationship present between intended parents and surrogates, so the negligible scope for the development of emotional stress builds up. However, emotional stress is a common problem in altruistic surrogacy.

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Author's Bio: 

Ravi Sharma is the director at ARTbaby Global (ARThealthcare). And a successful pharmacist and a marketer. He loves to write about IVF, Surrogacy, and other ART (assisted reproductive technology) news, issues, and updates. He is a Pharmacy graduate and M.B.A (marketing).