Two legal cases concerning surrogacy made headlines this summer. Both arose after surrogates were pressured to abort in the second trimester due to fetal anomalies: in Ontario, a cleft lip and possible other health problems; in Alaska, hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Both the unnamed Canadian surrogate and the American surrogate McKenna West refused, and the children they bore are alive today as a result.
The reason for the pro-life movement’s interest in these stories, and alarm over surrogacy, is self-evident.
An American couple I know has connected with a commercial surrogacy agency for extra income. I immediately passed along to them a National Post article detailing the lawsuit against the Ontario single mother whose womb a same-sex couple had borrowed.
In reply, I was reassured that the wife’s agreement with any intended parents would preclude abortion. Fair enough. If she won’t abort the baby, what business is it of mine?
Well, surrogacy arrangements often involve in vitro fertilization (IVF), so all of the problems associated with that technology—the freezing or discard of surplus embryos, for one—also come attached to surrogacy.
Fundamentally, children deserve to be conceived in the loving embrace of a husband and wife. Even with altruistic motivations, intentionally getting impregnated to gestate a child for someone else is wrong.
Pregnancy and childbirth tend to be extremely physically demanding. When this experience is so exacting and transformative, paying someone to endure it for you ought to feel a little icky. One study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2024 found that, based on Ontario data, surrogates were more than three times more likely to experience severe maternal complications than mothers who conceived “unassisted.”
Still, this fact is somewhat beside the point. We all “rent” out our bodies when we go to work, whether it be sealing envelopes in an office or breaking one’s back carrying steel beams at a construction site. The physical toll is not necessarily what makes a service exploitative.
The critical distinction is that pregnancy is a relationship, arguably the most intimate relationship of one’s life. For a similar reason, “sex work” is a misnomer—because sex is also a relationship (an extremely intimate one) that should not be contracted or commercialized.
I challenged the husband, who is abiding by his wife’s surrogacy ambitions: “How is this any different from pimping out your wife?” I asked, “Why are you treating your wife like a cow?” (In my zeal, I left something to be desired in terms of tactfulness and respect.)
The conviction I was crudely trying to instill in him, that I suspect he possesses in his heart of hearts, is that just as letting your wife sleep with someone else should be stigmatized as cuckoldry, so should letting your wife carry another man’s baby be anathema.
Pro-lifers are charged with viewing women as child-bearing vessels, as walking wombs, but au contraire! J’accuse the “commissioning parents” and predatory surrogacy agencies of objectifying the “gestational carrier.” How quickly are these “feminist pro-choicers” who dress up as Handmaids and claim an absolute right to bodily autonomy exposed as frauds.
The pro-life movement reveres motherhood. We recognize the special mother-child relationship, and not only do we plead for it not to be severed, but we condemn treating “mother” as a tag-team or replaceable role.
Even adoption, noble as it is, should be reserved for tragic situations where the biological parents are incapable of child-rearing. Questions about identity and struggles over perceived abandonment are well documented amongst adopted children.
You’re not supposed to separate dogs from their puppies for at least eight weeks after birth, but with surrogacy, the human child purposefully and promptly gets swept away upon delivery.
That is also what these tales of surrogacy-gone-wrong highlight: The child is an afterthought. How might these children feel when they one day find out that not only did their parents want to kill them due to medical issues, but instead of later dropping to their knees in gratitude, their parents then went on to sue the women who saved the lives of their precious children?
In the National Post article, the Ontario surrogate commented, “I just feel used … They didn’t get the perfect child they wanted and they threw me away.”
If the surrogate is objectified, how much more so is the child, who is regarded as a defective product that can be returned.
Abortion and practices like IVF and surrogacy are two sides of the same coin. If a child is perceived as an entitlement, to be acquired by any means necessary, as a right, then surely that right can just as easily be waived if you change your mind?
No one is entitled to a child. A child is a gift—from God. Where is your fear and trembling?
The ghastliest part of the National Post article is Sally Rhoads-Heinrich, owner of Surrogacy in Canada Online, reportedly arguing in favour of commercializing surrogacy, supposedly to ensure fair treatment of surrogates. (Currently, in Canada, surrogates can only be reimbursed for expenses, which can be quite far-ranging, including lost income.)
Besides this argument being obviously self-serving, it’s silly enough to be insulting. The greater the financial incentive, the greater the power imbalance, and the more likely desperately poor women will be exploited, as we see in several countries today. (One would hope that the details that emerged soon thereafter of McKenna West’s ordeal south of the border would head off this foolish notion.)
Still, this shot across the bow should be taken seriously: Big Fertility will lobby for commercial surrogacy. Rhoads-Heinrich estimates that for every surrogate here, there are 100 couples in search of one. This demand will intensify due to homosexuality, delayed childbearing, and rising infertility.
In a world where you can buy anything, we need to re-establish there are some things you should not be able to purchase—a baby being one of them. That is human trafficking by another name. And to my American friends: There are some things you should not sell.
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