For-Profit Surrogacy Dehumanizes Women | Opinion

In the last two years, surrogacy has gone from a $4 billion to a $14 billion dollar industry. This is a business that profits off eggs and wombs poached from impoverished women in the U.S. and places like war-torn Ukraine, where clinics have been described as "children factories" and babies were stuck in limbo for months, without parents, during the war.

In the U.S., surrogacy laws vary by state, but on the whole, it's largely unregulated and gaining more acceptance as celebrities like Khloe Kardashian, Paris Hilton, and Chrissy Teigen publicly celebrate their babies born via surrogate.

In reality, Big Surrogacy is a dehumanizing, multi-billion dollar industry fueled by wealth, desperation, and personal desire. There's a reason we don't allow the sale of organs or tissues in the United States: it would lead to a massive exploitation of vulnerable bodies. So why is it legal to sell eggs and rent out wombs in the U.S.?

In many western countries—like Australia, Great Britain, and Canada—for-profit surrogacy is illegal. It's time for the United States to follow suit and outlaw this unethical, dangerous, and dehumanizing practice.

One woman's story exemplifies how easily commercial surrogacy can go awry. Brittney Pearson was 24 weeks pregnant when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a surrogate mother, she discussed next steps with the couple who hired her to birth their baby. The two men urged her to terminate the pregnancy, refused to consent to medical intervention to save the child's life, and threatened lawsuits if she went against their wishes.

Pearson said she felt like a "rented-out uterus" and that her health concerns were completely neglected by the couple. Though Pearson hoped to save the baby, the parents didn't want a child born before 38 weeks for fear of health problems. Ultimately, Pearson delivered early and the baby passed.

This story raises important questions about the ethics of surrogacy. What rights do women have to their bodies when a health emergency surfaces? What right to life does a child have when they're a commercialized product expected to "turn out" a certain way? And in traditional surrogacy (where egg and/or sperm do not belong to the purchasing parents), what right does the child have to his or her biological parents in the aftermath of this game of reproductive musical chairs?

None of these questions have answers right now.

The surrogacy and donor industries offer anyone with enough money the ability to create designer babies. Ultimately, women's bodies are rented out for up to $50,000 a pop and children undergo separation trauma from their birthing mothers, all for the sake of the cause.

Surrogacy is based on monetary coercion, as women are paid handsomely for the use of their bodies and reproductive parts. "The only reason why I agreed to do this is for the financial benefits," 36-year-old Dana, a Ukranian surrogate mother, told The Guardian. Industry leaders present an illusion of altruism, but at the end of the day, surrogacy wouldn't happen without the paycheck.

Most surrogate carriers are low-income women hopeful for the payout, exploited by agencies and rich customers who can afford to rent their bodies. Ads for egg donation and surrogacy services online target low-income moms, military wives, and college students, with a high-cash reward as the leading point.

Most women and many who hire surrogates are likely not educated on what's happening behind the scenes or how the process violates the rights of children. Former New York governor Mario Cuomo once convened a task force on the matter. The task force members found commercial surrogacy to be "indistinguishable from the sale of children" and unanimously agreed that public policy should discourage it.

Anyone wealthy enough can create a baby with purchased eggs, sperm, and womb. Without a background check or biological ties to the child, they can walk away with a newborn baby. In one case, a single man purchased embryos, hired a surrogate, had twins and then sexually abused them. In Japan, a businessman fathered 16 surrogate children on his own and now wants more. YouTuber Shane Dawson, who has been accused of making pro-pedophilia comments, hired a surrogate with his husband, no questions asked. Another couple had 20 surrogate babies in one year, on their way to a goal of parenting 105 children. Something isn't right here.

Then there are the health risks involved in surrogacy. For egg donors, this includes Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome, ovarian torsion, ovarian cysts, chronic pelvic pain, premature menopause, loss of fertility, reproductive cancers, blood clots, kidney disease, stroke, and more. Surrogate mothers who become pregnant with eggs from another woman are also at higher risk for pre-eclampsia and high blood pressure. Their babies risk low birth weight, prematurity and other health issues. Some women have even died while giving birth as surrogates. These risks aren't included on the brightly colored ads popping into the Facebook feeds of women struggling to pay rent.

Surrogate mothers also have no rights to any relationship with the child they carry, and paying clients—like the couple I mentioned earlier—can push surrogates to abort for any reason, including unexpected multiples or if the child is a different sex than they'd hoped for. In one case, a woman was offered $10,000 to abort a baby with health problems.

Lastly, surrogacy ignores the studied and scientific realities of lifelong trauma resulting from the primal wounds of newborn separation. The reason that 95 percent of modern infant adoptions are open is because decades of research show that knowledge of and connection with a child's birth parents benefit the adoptee, even if he or she cannot be raised by them. Biology, from both mother and father, matters.

Though many surrogate pregnancies are gestational only, they still present problems. Data show that when babies are separated from their physical mothers at birth, it brings longstanding negative consequences.

Even puppies are not separated from their mothers for at least six weeks. Yet the surrogacy industry would have us believe that separating a newborn child from their mother—whose body is the only home, voice, smell, and heartbeat they've ever known—is inconsequential.

Most people are unaware of the ethics of surrogacy, and of the vital biological and physical connection between mother and child at birth. I know one couple who tried for years to have children, and ultimately turned to surrogacy. As someone who struggled with infertility, I know this desire and don't fault them for it. They fell prey to a culture that has normalized surrogacy without comprehending its ethical problems and long-term consequences.

Like other Western nations, the United States should outlaw for-profit surrogacy and restore dignity to the women and children whose human rights are violated within this demoralizing practice. If we don't, the repercussions will haunt us and hurt the children we've created, for generations.

Ericka Andersen is a freelance writer in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the author of the upcoming title Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church and the Church Needs Women. You can find her work at ErickaAndersen.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.