Conflicted

I read this article about military wives supplementing their families’ incomes by becoming surrogate mothers. At first read I thought, “What a beautiful thing to do for somebody else.” The main person chronicled in this article, Angel Howard, is a 32-year-old mother of 6 whose husband is in Iraq. When her husband was home, she was able to take part-time jobs, but now that he’s back in Iraq, she’s at home full time. That means that she needs to stretch $56,000 to cover all of her family’s needs. To put it another way, this family of eight have less to live on than I bring in by myself.

After two failures, Howard was able to conceive, and is currently carrying twins for Esteban and Jean-Michel (okay, how cute are those names? I bet they’re adorable together), a gay French couple. The part that I feel conflicted about is that Angel is using her military health insurance to pay for the pregnancy, even though the insurer states that pregnant surrogates should cover their own costs. Angel is going to get about $25,000 from the couple for carrying the babies to term, plus a bonus for not needing the prospective parents to pay for her healthcare during the pregnancy.

What about the thousands or millions of uninsured pregnant American women who are not able to get reliable, necessary healthcare for themselves and their unborn children? For whom there will not be further financial benefit at the end of their pregnancies? While the best solution is a fairer system all around, I am bothered by what seems to me to be an abuse of the current military healthcare system.

Also, and this is something else entirely, I’ve wondered what happens when people allow newspapers, tv shows, blogs, and magazines to profile them admitting to behaviors that could have detrimental effects on their lives. What if Ms. Howard’s insurer insists that she reimburse them for the costs of her current pregnancy, or refuse to cover any subsequent pregnancies? I mean, seriously people. Isn’t shutting your mouth and supporting your family worth more than giving the Army the finger in print?