Openness about a Child's Origins in Surrogacy in Comparison with Adoption & ART

The question of parents informing their offspring of their origins is a critical point. The surrogacy triad is composed of the intended mother, surrogate mother and the offspring and disclosure of facts to the offspring, family and friends is an important issue for discussion. In this review article, we attempt to address this concern by Van den Akker's studies of sub-fertile populations: adoptive, IVF and intended mothers of surrogacy. Then, we try to review the attitude and preferences of the general population in similar presumptive situations by Chliaoutakis questionnaire. Intended mothers using gestational surrogacy are much more likely to tell the child it was conceived using third party involvement. ART mothers are most willing to tell the child it was conceived using IVF, and adoptive mothers are most likely to tell the child how it was conceived regardless of the third party involvement used. The general population preferred involvement of a healthy stranger to family members or friends when receiving gametes or a surrogate child, whereas the respondents preferred being a surrogate mother or donate oocytes to a sibling or a close relative; although the picture was different for being a sperm donor. They appear not to be too likely to involve their friends in any of the third party option. It is possible that pragmatic and altruistic factors compete with each other and that close genetic links from ones family are in competition with the social factors involved in rearing such a child. Appropriate counseling must continue to be advocated to assist parents in making decision to reveal the origin of the child but it is imperative to remind oneself that: “The right to a child should not be achieved at the expense of the rights of the child".