Editorials
COMMONWEAL Lame duck soup uring welcoming ceremonies at Tokyo's economic summit last year, five missiles were fired by at the state guest house by an extremist group as visiting heads of state...
...There was even an openness for putting a 2 percent cap on cost-of-living increases on entitlement programs, a plan which had real, long-term significance for reducing federal deficits...
...Drawing lines always leaves some people on the unhappy side of them...
...As a result, now is the time to try something different...
...The president and the country's luck have not been so good since then...
...The extensive pre-synod consultations will not go to waste but will undoubtedly inform church life right here in the U.S...
...The three examples point up the problem...
...The fact is, they were waiting and willing to respond to a call for sacrifice, as long as it was across the board and applied fairly to all...
...What is a reasonable amount...
...The U.S...
...The synod as an institution of genuine collegiality, or even of simple consultation, is practically dead...
...As two reports made clear last month—the congressional Iran-contra board's final summation, and the joint deficit-reduction committee's response to Wall Street's Black Monday —much capital has been squandered since Tokyo, both political and economic...
...Still, there is a truth that needs to be spoken, and spoken plainly...
...In carrying out this assignment it looked for all the world like one of those cardboard congresses periodically called by oneparty dictatorships to devise a filigree of verbiage around decisions made behind the scenes by others...
...and now her pregnancy by another man...
...Nevada exempts surrogate contracts from the ban on payments connected with adoption...
...But the synod had a specific task—to provide insight and guidance regarding the "Vocation and Mission of the Laity in the Church and in the World Twenty Years after the Second Vatican Council...
...For the contracting couple...
...A recent survey in the Hastings Center Report (October/ November 1987) examines all of the pending state legislation on surrogacy and, perhaps unintentionally, catalogs the singular predicaments embodied in this "modest proposal...
...That is no reason for fudging the question of whether this society is crossing into an era where children are marketed...
...The American delegation, it should be underlined, acquitted itself honorably...
...As with many new biological and social practices, lines need to be drawn and conflicting interests need legislative resolution...
...Expressing disappointment at both the synod's secrecy and its outcome, the Canadian Archbishop Donat Chiasson told the Toronto Star that "there was nothing to hide except the nothingness...
...The four American bishops did their best to put a cheerful face on things, although phrases like'' we did not pedal backward'' (Archbishop Weakland) and "not negative" (Cardinal Bernardin) suggest that their enthusiasm is less than unbounded...
...And finally what will still be required is more than a little bit of luck...
...bishops (the Canadians, too) played a major role in getting the issue of women's ministry on the agenda, and it does not seem to be their fault that the issue was deflected, or rather drowned in the molasses of ecclesiastical rhetoric...
...Michigan is alone in considering penalties, a fine of $10,000 and up to one year in jail for a person entering into a surrogate contract...
...4 December 1987: 693...
...Instead, that crisis remains squarely on'the stove, ready to spill over the whole kitchen with the next dire economic indicators...
...Unfortunately this initial revulsion over surrogate arrangements has failed to concentrate the legislative mind...
...To pay or not to pay...
...What the Tower Commission called a' 'failure of responsibility " in the political and foreign-policy realms must now be said of this administration in the economic sphere as well...
...Who may contract with a surrogate...
...Reagan can reach back in his past for just enough of that...
...Louisiana makes contracts for paid surrogacy unenforceable...
...It is good to discover, as Cardinal Lorscheider of Fortaleza, Brazil, has noted, that 692: Commonweal the texts of the synod do not avoid the conciliar language of "people of God...
...and up to $50,000 and five years in prison for an outside party to the arrangement, presumably doctors, lawyers, or other brokers...
...Only three states have passed legislation dealing with some aspect of surrogacy: Arkansas makes the contracting couple automatically the legal guardian of a child born of an unmarried surrogate...
...He has done it with a vengeance, replacing "tax and spend" with "spend and borrow...
...Crippling the synod will only discredit Rome...
...Still, one fears for the day when the laity begins to sense that even the language most charged with the spirit of Vatican II can be turned out by the yard and used to circumvent real questions...
...And yet, in the words of Senator Packwood (R-Oreg...
...Infertile couples only...
...Genetic or other physical problems that could affect childrearing...
...What about informed consent and counseling...
...Congress should call for the establishment of a commission to study the economic situation and invite the president's endorsement...
...Bills before another seven (Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania) would prohibit the commercialization of surrogacy by banning payments, thereby effectively limiting its practice, with some of the states allowing unpaid surrogacy under stringent regulations...
...The synod was a sham, an insult to the intelligence of the laity who were supposed to be the subject of its deliberations...
...the time involved in her subsequent activities in opposing surrogate motherhood...
...They missed" has become the'story of the Reagan stewardship in general, from responding to AIDS to Supreme Court appointments...
...It is high time some friend of Rome says this with unmistakable bluntness...
...What if the surrogate changes her mind...
...Only five states (Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, and Wisconsin) are considering banning surrogacy altogether...
...There is a significant reservoir of pragmatic wisdom in this country that can transcend bipartisanship...
...the two-year, $76-billion deficit reduction plan finally extracted by the Congress and the president at the midnight hour is "a miserable little pittance...
...And her husband...
...Don't leave...
...The people know better, though of course they will not be the first to line up at the IRS...
...The synod's other product was a list of fifty-four propositions, mostly vague or deliberately ambiguous, which were presented to the pope to be transformed into whatever shape he wishes...
...There's more...
...Collegiality gives credence to papal authority...
...The synod's closing message expressed to the whole church, "and especially to you, our Christian lay men and women," the "wish to share . . . what took place...
...Asked at the time whether he was concerned by the attack, President Reagan replied with characteristic good humor, "No, they missed...
...Can the surrogate's behavior be regulated during pregnancy...
...Defenders of.centralized papal power may welcome this development because they think that authority is a zero-sum affair...
...ROMAN HOLIDAY Instructed by past experience and knowledgeable observers, we expected very little from the recent synod on the laity, and the synod fully met our expectations...
...No doubt the bishop-delegates and others present were sometimes moved by the ceremonies and testimony revealing the vitality and diversity of the Catholic church...
...If the mother miscarries, is partial payment in order or must she return any payments or the costs of services she has received...
...Most states have accepted the premise that surrogacy is destined to become a routine practice...
...It is time to try something different," said President Reagan as he launched his new economic program in 1981...
...For the surrogate...
...Recordkeeping and the child's right to know of its origins...
...The rockets fell short...
...This recent turn of events is an unfortunate but perhaps fitting finale to the Baby M trial with its combination of surrealistic bioethics and circus atmosphere...
...For prenatal care, diet, and activities...
...What can be done to shore up the economic edifice...
...Cited as factors in the breakup of their marriage were the stress of Mrs...
...Married couples only...
...Can she be required to abort a child with a genetic defect...
...They are wrong...
...Is her right to abortion restricted...
...4 December 1987: 691 BIRTH-MARKETING Mary Beth and Richard Whitehead have petitioned for divorce in the New Jersey courts...
...Instead, the president pulled the 2 percent proposal off the table, a lame-duck president, immune to the wrath of voters, who might one day have been hailed for having chosen the most fair and expeditious means of seeing the nation through the present turmoil...
...The Baby M case appalled many people...
...There was no apparent justification for this abdication of responsibility...
...The usual composition of such commissions and their tendency to compromise suggest they are a formula for permitting surrogate mQtherhood, at least in the absence of an alert and concerned public opinion...
...While some are necessarily putting on a grateful face, the real story is that a historic opportunity has been squandered...
...In the case of commercial surrogate motherhood, the line should be drawn under the word No...
...Physically and mentally fit...
...Able to provide for the child...
...Perhaps Mr...
...Whitehead's struggle to retain custody of "Baby M," the infant she bore as a surrogate for Elizabeth Stern...
...The administration, the victim of its rhetoric on the mortal sin of taxation, was not able to bite the reality of raising crucial revenues...
...The majority of pending bills will, in fact, make that a self-fulfilling prophecy...
...The message is full of ringing phrases, none of which cost anyone anything to declaim...
...Insurance for care of the child in case the parents die...
...Criminal record...
...A fine sentiment, after an assiduous effort at secrecy had assured that there would be as little sharing as possible of the synod's real deliberations...
...COMMONWEAL Lame duck soup uring welcoming ceremonies at Tokyo's economic summit last year, five missiles were fired by at the state guest house by an extremist group as visiting heads of state were being welcomed...
...Thirteen states have established or are considering establishment of commissions to advise on appropriate measures...
Vol. 114 • December 1987 • No. 21
