Service of surrogate pregnancy, posing a challenge to social ethic, is still operating in a grey area in China, a report by Saturday's China Daily said.

On a surrogate pregnancy website, namely, AA69 Loving Heart Surrogate Pregnancy Net, an advertisement was quoted as saying: "We need volunteers for surrogate pregnancy. No sex services.

Women with high education preferred. For your loving heart, you'll receive compensation of 40,000 yuan (around 4,900 U.S. dollars) or more."

The newspaper said such websites acting as intermediary for surrogate pregnancy were once shut down by authorities because of arousing controversy.

"It will bring about many social issues," Wu Qiantao, a professor at the Ethics and Moral Studies Center at People's University in Beijing said. "Once a woman goes through months of pregnancy and bears a child, she is the mother. And a contract for surrogate motherhood essentially asks her to sell her baby."

In the United States, the newspaper said, there have been cases in which surrogate mothers could not sever the attachment to their babies and refused to hand them over to the biological fathers.

In China, some people voice support for surrogate pregnancy, saying that a ban only forces those who want the children to resort to questionable methods, which raises the likelihood of scamming.

They also cited the agony of infertile couples and the benefits to society as long as the process is open and legally protected.

Liu Junhai, a legal expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Surrogate motherhood involves personal freedom, human rights and ethics, and must be handled in accordance with the law."

He also noted that the websites on surrogate pregnancy service "may have to face legal ramifications when the natural and surrogate mothers enter into an agreement without a full understanding of the law."

A website operator who only identified himself with the surname Liu told China Daily that they have migrant workers as surrogate mothers and also college graduates. If some people are willing to pay more, they can choose divorced women who have had healthy pregnancies before.

The newspaper said that more websites have strict physical health requirements, such as a check-up, a restriction on smoking or drinking habits, no hereditary diseases or history of abortion,none seems to address the psychological pain that surrogate mothers must endure when finally giving up their babies.

Liu Junhai stressed that laws should be more explicit in terms of protecting the rights of all participants, especially the surrogate mothers.

(Source: Xinhua)