'FACTORY' SELLS BABIES FOR pounds 11K.Byline: By WILL STEWART Stewart, river, Canada Stewart, river, 331 mi (533 km) long, rising in the Mackenzie Mts., central Yukon Territory, Canada, and flowing generally W to the Yukon River S of Dawson. A CONTROVERSIAL "baby factory" is selling new-born infants for pounds 11,000. The centre is home to 37 young surrogate mothers surrogate mother, a woman who agrees, usually by contract and for a fee, to bear a child for a couple who are childless because the wife is infertile or physically incapable of carrying a developing fetus. ready to give birth for couples who are unable to have children but who are happy to pay for a baby. The mums have been medically examined and checked for any family history of genetic disease. They also promise not to drink alcohol or smoke during pregnancy. Couples must adopt the babies - which use usually conceived using the male partner's sperm sperm or spermatozoon (spûr'mətəzō`ən, –zō`ŏn), in biology, the male gamete (sex cell), corresponding to the female ovum in organisms that reproduce sexually. - immediately after birth, whether they are healthy or not. The birth mothers sign a waiver The voluntary surrender of a known right; conduct supporting an inference that a particular right has been relinquished. The term waiver is used in many legal contexts. giving up all rights to the child. The centre, in Warsaw Warsaw (wôr`sô), Pol. Warszawa, city (1993 est. pop. 1,655,700), capital of Poland and of Mazowieckie prov., central Poland, on both banks of the Vistula River. , is run by Elizhbeta Shimanskaya, a 32-year-old nurse. She says it already has orders and that she will give birth to three babies. "Poland needs more people - 1.5 million couples face being childless. We are offering a service," she said. Most Poles back the initiative, but the powerful Catholic Church vehemently opposes it. One surrogate mother said: "The church is wrong. We can help these people, they cannot. We are living in the 21st century, not the dark ages." |
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