Doctor`s Ethical Guideline Might Foster Illegal Surrogate Mother Childbirth

The Korean Medical Association (KMA) announced the doctor`s ethical guidelines on 15th, which have raised much criticism that the stipulations of abortion and `childbirth by surrogate mother` counted on nothing but the doctors` viewpoint, while ignoring the current law and reality.

Although the KMA asserted that the guidelines were only `internal guiding principles` for the medical doctors, some pointed out that the guidelines actually verge on the bylaws, which should have been established more prudently. And others raised their voices that the KMA should have legalized through the administrative body or the National Assembly in order to publicize, as the KMA maintained to intend to, the widespread illegal medical treatment such as abortion.

Attorney Choi Jae-Cheon said, ``The KMA should have fully considered the plausible conflict with the legal and social reality for revision of the guidelines, since the doctors might have great impacts on peoples` lives.``

In particular, some pointed out that the approval of `childbirth by surrogate mother` might bring about the conflict over the maternal rights, because the civil law grants the surrogate mother with the maternal rights, although there is no regulatory provisions on the criminal law. Moreover, others even raise the issue that the childbirth by surrogate mother is a kind of crime against humanity, because rather than relatives, the poor women or Korean-Chinese women have usually become the surrogate mothers for money.

The current family law clearly states that the natural mother has the maternal right, so that the surrogate mother has the legal right of mother. However, since the surrogate mother gives birth to a baby following the client`s request, the client comes to bring up the baby, which might generate the conflict over the maternal rights.

Attorney Shin Hyun-Ho said, ``30 percent of test-tube baby treatments used Korean-Chinese women as surrogate mother. Even though there is no precedent, in case of the birth of deformed child, the surrogate mother might not receive the money or might have to take care of the baby.``

There are 1 million sterile couples in the nation. `The childbirth by surrogate mother` is the only hope for the couples who cannot have a baby due to the uterine problem. Currently, the accurate statistics of the surrogate mother childbirth is not available, but it is estimated that the sterilization hospitals have dealt with 70-80 cases yearly throughout the nation.

Prof. Kim Seok-Hyun (Seoul National University, College of Medicine) said, ``Even though the doctor`s ethical guidelines prohibit the surrogate mother for money, the sterile couples could select the surrogate mother in foreign countries. The revision of ethical guidelines should be accomplished with the revision of the current law reflecting the opinions of various social sectors such as the religious sector.``

Hyung-Sam Lee gdt@donga.com