Tim LeVier, who I believe is tied with Glenn Logan as the longest tenured commenter to your host’s ethics pronouncements, delivered as probing and ethical a suggestion for handling child birth surrogacy as I can imagine.

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “On The California-Texas Foiled Baby Murder Case, Part I: Prelude,” which, I must mention, is getting remarkably little publicity from the pro-abortion Axis news media. Gee, I wonder why…

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The underlying problem in these surrogacy cases is that these contracts seem to be “early”. I’d like to read the actual contracts in these scenarios to see what they contemplated, if anything. In truth, the surrogacy contract should be accompanied by a fully funded escrow account and a trustee. Payments from escrow should be structured for specific milestones and performance. The contract should recognize the surrogate’s absolute right of autonomy, but contractually, “life of the surrogate” should be the only consideration when allowing the surrogate to terminate.

Let’s generate a fictional scenario where the couple will pay $50k (inclusive) for a surrogate. The escrow account should be funded at 200% or $100k. If you can’t fund this escrow account in advance, you don’t get to sign a contract.

Payment for attempt ($5k)
Payment once pregnancy is confirmed at 8 weeks ($5k)
Recurring payments for pregnancy support ($10k spread-out)
Success fee for birth ($30k)

But also, the extra escrow is for additional success fees for a multiple birth scenario (Twins/Triplets) ($20k/ea)

Have a condition for payment from escrow for “Failure to adopt” or “Termination of Contract” from the bio-parents. ($5k/ea)

Termination of contract should be clearly stated as the limit of the bio-parents decision-making once pregnancy is established.