We have no business building a multi-billion-dollar fertility industry at the risk of the health and well-being of women and children. A woman’s body is not designed to carry another woman’s baby. This essay is adapted from remarks delivered at the Heritage Foundation.
With a Democratic majority in both the New York Senate and Assembly, along with a Democratic Governor, victory for the surrogacy industry is within reach. A bill that would make commercial surrogacy contracts legal and enforceable in the Empire State has been slipped into the state’s 2019 budget, buried deep on page 392.
Real grownups know that no one has a right to a child, a right to another woman’s body in order to have a child, or a right to risk anyone’s health or life in order to have a child.
Surrogacy is no April Fools’ joke. It’s no laughing matter at all. It’s a big business that exploits, uses, abuses, preys on, and commodifies women. It turns children into products to be designed, selected, and purchased, while it profits handsomely. And it is willing to fight like mad to protect its moneyed interests.
The United States currently has a hodge-podge of state-level legislation regulating surrogacy. High-profile disputes over surrogate pregnancies demonstrate this is not a workable solution. Regulating surrogacy does not protect women and children. It only commodifies them more.
A recent embryo custody battle highlights the plight of the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos in the United States today.
A new film in which the main character commits suicide sends the message that “me and my needs come before you and your needs.” It is a tale of autonomy run amok—a result of the radical and ludicrous idea that we do not live connected to, dependent on, or in relationship with others.
When motherhood becomes a mere avenue to a paycheck, both the woman and the child she carries are wronged. Surrogacy undermines the dignity of both women and children.
The UK has passed a bill that allows for genetic engineering of children through nuclear transfer technology and germ-line modification. Young women will be needed to supply their eggs. But egg donation—or more accurately, egg selling—is risky business.
The fertility industry has absolutely no interest in doing the studies and the research that are needed to protect women.
In addition to the tragic stories of surrogacy gone wrong, there are families and surrogates with “happy endings.” It is important to hear these stories, too, and to respond to the arguments they make in favor of surrogacy.
Egg freezing does not really beat biology. It buys a small chance at giving birth, but at a very high price indeed.
No one should prey upon vulnerable cash-strapped women, recklessly endangering their health and well-being in order to harvest their eggs.
Legislative battles are heating up across the United States on the issues of surrogacy contracts and the regulation of assisted reproduction. If we are truly concerned for the welfare of women and children, we must oppose such practices.
Assistive reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization not only involve serious medical risks, they also disrupt family life and commodify human beings.