A surrogate society: the rise of outsourcing pregnancy

Surrogacy relies on the exploitation of vulnerable women and the commodification of children, argues Bryan Lawrence Gonsalves.

Despite warnings by governments and by various popes and the Holy See, surrogacy is becoming increasingly normalized, particularly through celebrities, politicians and wealthy public figures who describe it as an empowering and transformative path to parenthood.

Surrogacy, an arrangement in which a woman carries and gives birth to a child for another person or couple who become the child’s legal parents, is already a billion-dollar industry in which people with considerable financial means can pay women, often from poorer backgrounds, to carry their children.

This raises questions not only about the morality of surrogacy itself, but about wealth, power, the dignity of women, the commodification of children and the kind of society we are creating around motherhood.

No one can know the circumstances behind every decision to pursue surrogacy. Infertility, medical complications, or other deeply painful circumstances may be involved. But as the practice moves beyond exceptional cases and becomes increasingly mainstream, one question deserves greater attention: what happens when the wealthy can outsource the physical demands of pregnancy to women with fewer economic choices? 

Commodity
Hollywood has been one of the most visible showcases for surrogacy for years. A brief search will produce countless examples of actors, models, and other public figures who have welcomed children through the practice. What was once generally viewed as an exceptional response to serious medical circumstances is increasingly presented as an ordinary reproductive option. It is no longer discussed only in the context of infertility.

Furthermore, the popularity of so-called ‘social surrogacy’ makes this shift particularly striking. In these cases, surrogacy is pursued for professional, social, or aesthetic reasons. With the underlying perception being that pregnancy does not fit conveniently into a career, or because someone does not want the physical challenges associated with pregnancy, or because taking time away from work could mean losing opportunities. 

Whatever the individual circumstances, the rise of social surrogacy risks treating the physical realities of pregnancy as obstacles to be overcome through money and technology, rather than realities that society should accommodate by supporting and caring for pregnant women.

This also reflects a deeper problem in our modern culture which often measures a person’s worth by productivity. Pregnancy is thus viewed as unproductive since it requires time, energy, and sacrifice, and motherhood can temporarily change a woman’s career and financial prospects. 

What we are seeing is a system in which wealthy families increasingly have the option of having the costs and physical burdens of pregnancy borne by someone else. Surrogacy is often presented as progress and as an expression of reproductive autonomy. The language of choice is appealing, but it can obscure a harder reality: the freedom of one party may depend upon the economic vulnerability of another.

Paradox

Via surrogacy, the burdens of pregnancy do not disappear; they are transferred. Pregnancy does not become less demanding because someone else is willing to carry it. The physical risks, medical supervision, pain, and potential complications are simply assumed by another woman’s body.

The power imbalance becomes even more troubling when contractual arrangements dictate what a surrogate mother may eat, drink, or do during pregnancy, or when prospective parents demand that a pregnancy be terminated because the child has been diagnosed with a disability or health condition. Whatever the circumstances of an individual case, these possibilities expose how easily pregnancy can become subject to the demands of a contract.

This is why the class and wealth inequality dimension of surrogacy cannot be ignored. The issue is not whether people who turn to surrogacy genuinely desire children. Many undoubtedly do. The question is why it is so consistently women with fewer economic options who carry the physical burden, while those with greater financial means can commission the pregnancy.

Just as war is old, sending the young to fight and die, surrogacy is the wealthy distancing themselves from the physical burdens of pregnancy, by placing them on those with poorer backgrounds.

As this happens, the abuses borne by surrogate mothers are overlooked and they disappear from the public conversation.

While attention naturally centers on the prospective parents and their desire for a family, the woman actually carrying the child becomes almost invisible, reduced to the means through which that desire is fulfilled. Her body risks becoming, in effect, infrastructure for someone else’s family.

The war in Ukraine exposed this dynamic in a particularly striking way. When Russia invaded, international media reported on intended parents who were unable to collect babies born through surrogacy because the children remained in Ukraine. The language was often strikingly transactional, with the crisis framed around parents being unable to retrieve children they had commissioned, while the women who had carried those children received far less attention. It revealed just how easily the surrogate mother can disappear from the story altogether.

Toxic capitalism
The industry of surrogacy preys on a steady supply of poor and vulnerable woman, who faced by harsh economic conditions, become surrogates. At its core, this system turns female bodies into a market, and we see this happening worldwide in countries like India, Thailand, Nepal and in recent years, Nigeria and Georgia.

We may be witnessing the emergence of a new form of reproductive class, in which those with sufficient wealth can separate themselves from the physical demands of pregnancy while women with fewer economic options assume them.

In California, a surrogacy arrangement can easily cost more than $150,000 once fertility treatment, medical care, legal fees, agencies, and compensation are included. This is not an ordinary consumer expense. It is an industry accessible primarily to those with considerable financial means.

For most of human history, pregnancy was one of the few biological realities that crossed class boundaries. Women experienced vastly different standards of healthcare and living conditions, but pregnancy itself could not simply be transferred to someone else. With surrogacy, this reality changes.

The development is particularly significant in our modern culture which places enormous pressure on women’s bodies.

Hollywood and much of the wider entertainment industry prize youth, thinness, beauty, and constant professional availability. Pregnancy can disrupt all of these.

And so the rich might choose to purchase an arrangement in which another woman’s body absorbs the physical costs of reproduction, while the economic system that makes pregnancy difficult to combine with work remains largely unchanged.

That is toxic capitalism, a lack of ethical morality and a disregard for innate human values, all collectively making its way into the womb.

Culture of Life 

We should instead work toward a culture of life which genuinely prioritizes the family. In a society that truly values motherhood, pregnancy should not be viewed as a burden or a career setback that women must find ways to avoid. That means affordable childcare, safe working conditions, and meaningful social protection for families.

The desire for a child is deeply human, and infertility can bring profound suffering. But a good desire does not make every means of fulfilling it morally good. Rather than building a society in which the wealthy can outsource pregnancy to poorer women, we should build one in which motherhood is supported, protected, and valued.

The Catholic vision begins with a simple principle: neither the mother nor the child exists to serve someone else’s desires. Both possess an inherent dignity given by God. The question, then, is not merely whether technology allows us to outsource pregnancy, but whether this is the kind of society we should want to build. 

This is a very slightly edited version of an article which was first published in the Spanish magazine Omnes. For the original article, see here: https://www.omnesmag.com/firmas/subcontratacion-embarazo-maternidad-subrogada/

It is re-published in Adamah Media with the permission of both Omnes and the author.