Surrogacy Controversy Mentioned on The Joe Rogan Experience #2140

On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience #2140, the host, Joe Rogan, and his guests Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin, quickly mentioned a story about a gay couple that Joe is friends with who had recently hired a Surrogate to carry their child to term. The controversy in the story comes from the fact that Joe Rogan states that the Surrogate “decided to keep the baby” and spoke of Surrogacy as a medieval form of reproduction, with the loss of the maternal bond and the loss of the “mother” of the child.

This story starts at the 40:24 mark of the episode.

While we have very few details beyond the quick mention in the podcast, we thought it would be best to clarify the legal rights and protections that Parents and Surrogates, for that matter, have when choosing Conceptual Options as their Surrogacy Agency.

The only possible situation in which we could see the outcome mentioned in the Joe Rogan episode occurring is if the couple had utilized Traditional Surrogacy and did not utilize a reputable Surrogacy Agency to establish their legal parental rights in the child. Traditional Surrogacy is very similar to Gestational Surrogacy, as the Surrogate is either inseminated or IVF is utilized to implant an embryo in the Surrogate to carry to term.

The big difference comes from whose eggs were used in the creation of the embryo. In Gestational Surrogacy, the egg used to create the embryo implanted in the Surrogate is from a separate Egg Donor or the Intended Mother, not the Surrogate herself. In Traditional Surrogacy, the Surrogate is not only the gestational carrier for the child – but she is also the Egg Donor. The Surrogate’s egg is used to create the embryo she is carrying to term either via insemination or IVF, which is why there can potentially be legal issues down the line from this sort of Surrogacy arrangement.

Again, we aren’t sure of the exact details, as Joe Rogan didn’t want to reveal any private information, but we can be sure that this was a very extreme situation and for this outcome to have occurred, there could not have been the proper Surrogacy Agency and legal protections in place. Joe Rogan’s narrative was both uneducated and clearly not well thought out.

For this reason, we only utilize Gestational Surrogacy here at Conceptual Options and not Traditional Surrogacy. In Gestational Surrogacy, there is no potential legal claim as a biological parent by the Surrogate, as she is not related to the child in any way.

Even so, at Conceptual Options, we ensure that parental rights are legally established and vested in the Intended Parents before the child is born, so there will be no potential legal issues regarding parentage and parental rights for the Intended Parents or the Surrogate.

See below for a link to the Podcast episode on YouTube:

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            Want to learn more about IVF, Egg Donation, and Surrogacy? Please contact us today at www.ConceptualOptions.com or by calling 858-748-4222 to learn more about how surrogacy can be right for you.