Have Surrogacy Advocates Read A Different “Handmaid’s Tale”?
A month barely passes where we don’t hear the celebratory news of another celebrity entering parenthood – via a helping hand, or rather, helping uterus, of a surrogate. From Kim Kardashian to Elton John, the trend is in vogue. This weekend, ‘Emily in Paris’ star Lily Collins became the latest to present her bundle of joy – which had grown and developed in another woman’s uterus.
Liberals rejoice in this use of reproductive technology as liberation from our biological trappings. No longer must women depend on completing their families before the dreaded menopause strikes. No longer must gay men be stuck with a woman in the frame if they want a biological child. A triumph for equality, we’re told.
Yet if surrogacy was truly an expression of equality, it’s curious that we only ever see one end of the deal. Why are wealthy elites always the receiving party in the contract – and never bearing the load of a pregnancy for others for nine months?
On carefully curated Instagram reels, we see the jubilant new mother, and the beautifully posed baby. But the woman who gave her body, her time, herself for the sake of the child is curiously out of sight, and out of mind.
Of course, we know that a person would only agree to such an intrusive sacrifice if they were deeply in need of pocketing the payment in exchange. In the USA, surrogacy fees can be around $200,000. In Collins’ native England, paying for surrogacy is technically illegal – but unlimited “pregnancy expenses” can be incurred, to the tune of £15,000 or more.
For some women, that’s too much to turn down. They put their health on the line for the cash. Surrogate mothers are often expected to maximize the investment of the commissioning parties by carrying twins or higher multiples, thus placing them at a higher risk of experiencing pre-eclampsia and/or gestational diabetes. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) label for the drug, Lupron, which is used to transfer embryos, also notes considerable side effects. Following a birth, the process of postpartum separation of mother and child can be mentally and emotionally distressing.
Curiously, the iconic red cloaks of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” have become a standardized uniform for the progressive left as a symbol of their fight for abortion. Yet none seem to want to don their cloak in solidarity with these surrogate women, whom Atwood’s dystopian text most keenly reflects. Are these low-income women used as child-bearing vessels for the convenience of the ruling class not worthy? One wonders if these campaigners have truly read the text of the book.
Fans of Lily Collins have leapt to her defense, citing her former anorexia as grounds as to why she did not carry her own child. Only the heartless could look upon Lily without compassion. So many relate to the desire to parent. If a woman can afford to fulfill her wish via surrogacy, shouldn’t she be allowed?
Such a narrative appeals to the emotion. Yet once again, we have cut vital individuals out of the picture. Not only have we prioritized the personal fulfillment of a wealthy woman over the health and wellbeing of a poor one – we have also neglected to think of the rights and wellbeing of the baby herself.
The most innocent of all the parties, the baby had no choice in being placed in the “wrong” womb. Studies in perinatology have shown that the bonding process between a mother and the infant begins in utero. The baby learns to recognize the mother’s voice and her scent in amniotic fluid. Oxytocin triggers a hormonally-bonding process between the mother and baby during labor, and furthermore, the odor of the gestational mother is proven to play a soothing role in post-birth adjustment. Longitudinal studies on development suggest that children who experience separation from their birth mothers are, by the age of seven, more likely than their peers to suffer from adjustment difficulties and to be vulnerable to the effects of maternal distress.
Yet upon arrival, the child is intentionally and traumatically ripped apart from her mother – in exchange for cold, hard, cash from the adults who set up the entire scenario. Not since the slave trade has the purchase of a human being been so widely accepted.
A child, no matter how wanted, is not a product to be bought and sold. The slew of celebrities normalizing the practice is numbing our cultural sensitivity which should balk at putting the needs of a child ahead of the wants of an adult.
Rather than liberalize surrogacy laws, governments truly committed to equality – and to children’s rights and wellbeing – would instead consider the victims of this wicked industry, which plays on the well-intentioned desires of parents to the detriment of commodified women and babies. We must finally banish this international scandal to the confinements of Atwood’s “Gilead”.