Surrogacy: Is it a legitimate option for building a family, or is it a child market?

Recently, Stephanie Levich, founder of Family Match Consulting, reiterated her full support for the practice of “Gestation for Others,” or surrogacy, as it would offer many more people the ability to fulfill their dream of becoming parents.

Levich made a comment in People magazine about some of Pope Francis’ statements regarding surrogacy, which the pontiff has called “a form of exploitation” on numerous occasions and a “deplorable practice” that commercializes pregnancy.

According to Levich, “This is a matter of personal autonomy and choice – of women having the ability to make decisions for themselves and their families.”

And so, while many regions are calling for an immediate global ban on surrogacy, for Levich “such a decision could be dangerous,” as many would then seek it out anyway, but illegally, and thus, less safely. Preventing ethical surrogacy would therefore increase the risk of abuse and exploitation, not to mention that “banning practices like surrogacy would impact a large demographic.”

Echoing her is Brooke Kimbrough, CEO of Roots Surrogacy, who says, “For some people, it’s the only option they have for building a family.”

Both believe that the concerns of those opposed to surrogacy are exaggerated, as in their opinion, in the vast majority of surrogacy cases, it results in incredibly beautiful relationships.

However, there are many feasible objections to this optimistic view. These critical observations deserve to be brought to light.

Surrogacy: is it a right that can help us to build a family?

The practice of surrogacy has grown in direct proportion with the deconstruction of the idea of the family based on marriage between a man and a woman. Additionally, as noted in an article posted on Mercatornet, in most cases, those who seek a surrogate are not couples who are battling infertility, as is often suggested. In fact, same sex couples’ request for surrogates is increasing exponentially, especially in countries where marriage between gay people is legal. This has increasingly fueled the belief that they are entitled to have a child. A ban on surrogacy would then be an egregious act of discrimination.

However, this perspective is anthropologically and legally distorted, not to mention perverted: because there really should be no “right to have children.” Surrogacy is currently illegal in many parts of the world because it is the children who have the right to a family, not the other way around.

If motherhood is for sale, life ceases to be a mystery of love

It is true that there are situations in which, as scientific philosopher Simone Tropea explains, children lose their biological parents for various reasons: abandonment, death due to illness or injury, homicide, suicide… Those children are thus entrusted to people who can take the place of their biological father and mother. However, in this case, it is the children’s rights that come first.

Their shelter and care are the priority, but conditions that cannot be considered ideal are not created on purpose, voluntarily.

Science, in fact, has already proven that the ideal living conditions for a child is to be born and raised, being shown love by their own biological parents.

There are texts, such as Maternal Care and Mental Health, by J. Bowlby (a physician who edited a paper on motherhood for the WHO), which offer clear guidance on the subject and discuss the attachment an infant has to its mother.

“With Bowlby,” Tropea himself explains in this regard in his book Generated – Not Created – Mysticism and the Philosophy of Birth: Surrogacy and the Future of Humanity, “through an integrated scientific approach, contemporary science definitively affirms that the fundamental psychological experience, for every human individual, is one’s relationship with one’s mother. This is a pre-societal relationship, which can be harmed or negatively compromised, when it is altered by a historical and social context, or by a biographical event, which produces a violent and unnatural tear between genetrix and generatus, thus resulting in the unconscious start to many psychological and physical illnesses.”

Separation from one’s mother must be gradual

Even at the developmental level, as noted in the article “On the issue of surrogacy, it’s the Pope’s critics who are archaic and uninformed,” children are meant to be raised by their biological mothers and fathers. Moving away from this model risks becoming a form of abuse, not because the person who pays for gestation and looks after the child will necessarily be a bad guardian, but because the first right of an unborn child is not taken into account. As Tropea explained, it is to be welcomed by those who have formed us with love and not to become “goods” valued for their usefulness.

Motherhood thus ceases to be shrouded in mystery and becomes a profitable business – except that children cannot be manufactured as watches or cars are.

When the child is “damaged goods”

Another touchy subject is the fact that many children born through surrogacy have been abandoned by foreign parents, often due to birth defects.

In 2014 in the UK, the press described a case involving twins. While one twin was healthy, the other baby, Amy, was born with a rare hereditary condition that causes babies to be “floppy” and developmentally delayed. When the client learned of Amy’s disability, she refused to take her. She told Jenny on the phone, something like: “Who would want to adopt her? No one would want to adopt a disabled child.” In the end, she only took the healthy baby.

If one believes that these are isolated cases, one would be well-advised to inform oneself: unfortunately, the request for abortion is almost automatic when faced with a child who would be born with a disability in the practice of surrogacy.

On the other hand, how could it not be so? With surrogacy, no matter what anyone says, the child is seen as a product. It’s for sale, and if the product is not what you want, you exchange it… like you do with a pair of shoes.

Levich sees no problem in this and calls those who stand in the way of this practice “short-sighted.” Yet short-sightedness is a very common disease whenever massive amounts of money are involved.

And the business of children born through surrogacy has staggering numbers.