Surrogacy – a crust of happiness over a stew of corruption and exploitation

Lily Collins welcomes her first baby, while her husband shuts down haters criticising surrogacy journey.” I didn’t know who Lily Collins is either, but this week’s headline in Cosmopolitan suggests that she is someone famous.

And she and Charlie were delighted with their bundle of joy. Their Instagram message read: "Welcome to the center of our world Tove Jane McDowell. Words will never express our endless gratitude for our incredible surrogate and everyone who helped us along the way. We love you to the moon and back again."

That’s the argument for surrogacy in a fluffy pink nutshell. The parents are over the moon; the surrogate is happy; a baby has loving parents; critics are haters. What’s not to like?

Nothing, says The Economist, also in the past week. It profiled a couple who had hired a surrogate mother and commented: “Acts of kindness, such as hers, ought to be celebrated; in their own small way they each increase the sum of joy in the world by incubating children for families that, for various reasons, can’t do so themselves.

As usual, The Economist – like most supporters of legalising surrogacy – did not inquire into the rights of the child. In this case, the commissioning couple was gay, so the child will grow up without a mother. It will never know the history of its biological parents. It will not know nothing about its medical background.

Nor did it inquire into the background of the surrogate mother. Why did she sell her body? Did she mind being excluded from the life of the child she bore for nine months?

The need for children is great, says The Economist: “According to one study published in 2006, there were around 1m parents in America who wanted to adopt a child, yet only 51,000 children were placed with agencies for adoption each year.” That’s obviously because about 950,000 American babies are aborted each year. If none of them had been aborted, perhaps all those parents would have been able to adopt a child.

The surrogacy industry is growing at a fearsome rate. According to Global Market Insights, a forecasting firm, it was valued at US$14 billion in 2022. But 2023, it will grow to US$129 billion. This suggests that the sum of surrogacy joy in the world has been eclipsed by the sum of surrogacy dollars.

Already surrogacy has led to incredibly corrupt and perverse practices. Also this week, perhaps too late for The Economist to take into account, Thai police and Interpol uncovered a human-eggharvesting scheme which kept three young Thai women in virtual slavery.

The facts in stories spanning continents and languages are difficult to corroborate. But Pavena Hongsakula, founder of the Pavena Foundation for Children and Women, claimed in a press conference in Bangkok that the three women were trafficked to Georgia, where surrogacy is legal, by a Chinese gang. They were told that they would be surrogate mothers. Instead, their eggs were harvested for month after month. The eggs were sold in other countries for use in IVF, Ms Pavena said.

The rescued women reported that a hundred other Thai women were living in four houses at an “egg farm”.

This sounds too awful to be true, but in Georgia, where surrogacy is legal, the practice has led to incredible situations. Christina Ozturk and her 22 children, 21 of them from surrogate mothers, lives in the Black Sea resort city of Batumi. She posts regularly on Instagram (in Russian) about her family. She and her husband Galip originally planned to have 105 children, but apparently this was derailed by his arrest for involvement in a murder back in his native Turkey.

Better documented is a recent feature in Bloomberg.com about a poor, lower-caste 13-year-old Indian girl who wanted to buy a mobile phone. Her neighbour told her about an easy way to make some cash – sell her eggs. So she lied to her mother and the doctors and earned US$180. The clinic to which she sold the eggs was associated with one of India’s largest fertility groups and was backed by a leading American investment firm.

“An act of kindness” – or an act of desperation?

The fact is that the surrogacy industry – which includes markets for eggs and sperm – inevitably dehumanises and exploits women and children. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has the right idea. Her government has declared that surrogacy is a “universal crime” and cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. “Human life is priceless and is not a commodity,” she tweeted.  


Do you think that surrogacy should be legalised?  


Michael Cook is editor of Mercator.

Image credit: screenshot of Pavena Hongsakula at the press conference with the three rescued women at the Pavena Foundation for Children and Women in Bangkok / Bangkok Post


 

icon

Join Mercator today for free and get our latest news and analysis

Buck internet censorship and get the news you may not get anywhere else, delivered right to your inbox. It's free and your info is safe with us, we will never share or sell your personal data.

Showing 15 reactions

Please check your e-mail for a link to activate your account.
  • Emberson Fedders
    commented 2025-02-06 11:02:17 +1100
    Because you are opposed to women adopting out a child they choose to have and a paid for, but want women who are forced to give birth to adopt the child out if they cannot afford to keep it.
  • Michael Cook
    commented 2025-02-05 17:16:23 +1100
    Would you be able to expand on the “ideological incoherency” bit? I can see why you might object that it was practically inconsistent. In both surrogacy and adoption, the link with the birth parents is severed. (However, one involves the deliberate creation of a child without that connection; the other involves an unfortunate or even tragic separation because the birth parents don’t want the child.) But I cannot see why they are “ideologically incoherent”.
  • Emberson Fedders
    commented 2025-02-05 16:59:20 +1100
    “In this case, the commissioning couple was gay, so the child will grow up without a mother. It will never know the history of its biological parents. It will not know nothing about its medical background.”

    But Mercator is virulently anti-abortion and wants to force women to have babies and then adopt them out if they cannot afford to raise them.

    Just another case (along with the examples cited by Anon Emouse) of the complete ideological incoherency of Mercator.
  • James Dougall
    Anon Emouse: “Abortion and surrogacy are two separate issues that merit separate discussions”. Actually, they are both closely related because both treat the human person (at the embryo stage) as a commodity to be used or discarded. And the surrogacy procedure involves aborting (discarding) spare embryos.
  • mrscracker
    No, Mr Mouse. That would seem to be a logical explanation if we’re thinking in a human way but God is a pure Spirit. And while we may be bound by the laws of Nature, He is not.
    It’s a good conversation to have. Thank you for bringing that up.
    🙂
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-02-05 08:24:18 +1100
    But, mrscracker, while scripture might not choose to use those words, functionally, that’s what God did, right? Donate sperm to Mary?

    And James, it doesn’t really? Abortion and surrogacy are two separate issues that merit separate discussions.
  • James Dougall
    Mr Anon Emouse, you say: “So, mercatornet says the birth rate is falling, yet, for people who want a kid of their own but can’t naturally (e.g. infertility or sterility), surrogacy (which offers an option for these people) is “a crime”. Yeah, try as I might I can’t square mercatornet’s morals.”

    However, in this article, Mercatornet points out that there are about 950,000 American babies aborted each year. I’d say that goes a long way towards explaining the falling birthrate and towards squaring Mercator’s morals. I don’t know about yours though.
  • mrscracker
    You have an enquiring mind Mr. Mouse.
    :)
    I don’t believe scripture ascribes to either of those descriptions.
    You have a blessed day.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-02-05 05:11:18 +1100
    “This suggests that the sum of surrogacy joy in the world has been eclipsed by the sum of surrogacy dollars.”

    Michael, there’s no way to know this. The joy a child brings to their parents is immeasurable, especially for those that have been trying for so long but experience fertility issues. Unless, of course, you’re trying to suggest that the joy a child brings to their parents is less than the $129Billion figure you cited. In which case, I would ask you – how much monetary-based-joy does a child bring to their parents?
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-02-05 03:27:44 +1100
    Foster father, thank you, mrscracker. Does that make God the sperm donor or surrogate father for Christ?
  • mrscracker
    Good morning Mr. Mouse. According to scripture St. Joseph was the foster father of Jesus.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-02-05 01:39:55 +1100
    Also – wasn’t Joseph a surrogate father for Jesus? Acting as a father in place of God? (Or wouldn’t that make God a sperm donor for Mary?)
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-02-04 23:47:09 +1100
    So, mercatornet says the birth rate is falling, yet, for people who want a kid of their own but can’t naturally (e.g. infertility or sterility), surrogacy (which offers an option for these people) is “a crime”.

    Yeah, try as I might I can’t square mercatornet’s morals.
  • mrscracker
    Sometimes it seems we are more outraged about puppy mills than the human infant kind.
  • Michael Cook
    published this page in The Latest 2025-02-04 22:52:01 +1100