A surrogate mother from Texas refused to abort a baby with a heart defect in the face of demands from its biological parents.
At 16 weeks, doctors revealed that the baby Stephanie Levesque was carrying, had a high risk heart defect.
Against the parents’ wishes, Stephanie carried the baby to full term.
Hope
Stephanie, who has two twin daughters herself, said that as a family, they “simply couldn’t give up hope”.
When the parents were told that Stephanie was not going to abort the child, she stopped receiving payments and contact was broken off.
She gave birth successfully in December 2017.
Stephanie has not seen the baby since and does not know what happened to him.
Surrogacy laws
In some US states, surrogacy (including commercial surrogacy) is legal.
In Texas surrogacy is only legal between married, heterosexual couples, and there must be no genetic connection with the surrogate mother.
Surrogacy is legal in the UK, but women are not permitted to advertise themselves as surrogates or make profit from the service.
In December former head of the family court Sir James Munby called for commercial surrogacy to be legalised in the UK because society has changed.
Director of The Christian Institute Colin Hart said: “This case shows the inherent problem with surrogacy. Children are turned into commodities. The commissioning couple didn’t want their baby because of the heart defect – almost as though it’s a faulty product.”