Janice Turner on Surrogacy

Helen Lewis in the Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/10/usa-commercial-surrogacy-industry/688357/?gift=zxpu9ZCaDPuLBf5GDnVHRRD8s8AXIe4FqpTA8DqkfEU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Also links to an earlier piece on surrogacy in Georgia

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/magazine/fertility-surrogates-trafficking.html

In 2024, 11,821 embryos were transferred to surrogates in American clinics associated with the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, up from 8,461 three years earlier, and the United Nations estimates that the global worth of the industry is almost $15 billion.

JFC

That's a good article. Horrific, to see what's happening globally. A huge baby trade. And somehow celebrated, or at least not really opposed.

As mentioned on another thread, it's left liberal 'blue' states like California and New York that are most open to surrogacy. The story about the Chinese billionaires with 15 kids being regimented and the demand for "cheerleaders" as carriers is just nuts

That's a great article - i wish it had also touched more on the impact on the babies.

The Christian right's determined to remove women's rights to bodily autonomy and end equal marriage. Surrogacy and trans people are the chosen wedge issues.

So I'm unsurprised by this latest. Anything to chip away at the progress made on marriage equality, homophobia and allowing women to choose what happens to their bodies.

They care about as much about 'protecting women and kids' as Tommy Robinson does.

The money for all this organised, divisive bigotry is being applied to the UK as it was America. Where women are now dying of eclampsia and ectopic pregnancies because doctors are too afraid to perform the necessary surgery. And a rapist gets a lesser sentence than the woman who aborts his baby.

The insidious homophobia, and implication that women should not be able to control their own bodies, is the point.

Some people suffer from a severe case of terminological inexactitude, and I wonder if they can ever recover.

Sadly for you, the fact is that all these issues that the so-called Christian right are supposedly focusing on to supposedly control women are issues that people can look at independently and draw their own conclusions.

The left has the Omni Cause, where you are expected to toe the line on every issue, whether it's trans demands, Ed Sheeran, surrogacy.

The rest of us examine the facts ad draw our own conclusions.

I am against surrogacy because of the impact on the baby. The treatment of surrogates is also a concern but I am primarily interested in the babies. And that has nothing to do with the far right. In fact, I have been fed a load of pro-surrogacy propaganda from The Times, Guardian over the years. I have 2 adopted children. I looked into surrogacy 30 years ago when wondering what to do next. I was horrified by what I saw. Same with international infant adoption. So we adopted two traumatised children from the UK care system.

And my experience has informed my position. I don't think we should be mucking around with people's genetic connections unless it is absolutely necessary (my children nearly died) and certainly not to meet the needs of rich celebrities or men.

Commercial surrogacy is banned in practically every country in Europe. Ireland is the outlier, where they have embraced the bodily autonomy line on both surrogacy and trans demands. Luckily the UK is more circumspect.

Thanks for that post. I didn't realise Ireland were full "my body my choice" in this area @Arran2024 . It's quite a drastic turnaround considering they were so anti abortion until recently.

Or is it?

Does the birth mother get named on the child's birth certificate, for example.

This story I found on twitter is shocking. I can’t see the original, it’s behind a paywall. It’s trafficking, pure and simple.

You've bought into a neoliberal, capitalist commodification of every aspect of the human - particularly female - body. Not everybody else has.

China has already had 2 3 gene edited babies born in 2018. The scientist who announced it didn't anticipate how horrified everyone else would be. He was jailed but he's now out. (ETA: updates on numbers)

It's almost certainly going to be paired with surrogacy

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/08/science/human-embryo-gene-editing

Good grief.
So we don't allow the trade in organs and body parts as that would be unethical - and benefit the wealthy. But trading in babies is OK in your weird world?

Sunlight as ever.

A senior politician in Ireland had a baby via an overseas surrogate and helped push liberalising the surrogacy laws. But the birth mother is still listed on the birth certificate, I think.

This is a sobering and concerning issue.
It has been mentioned about the baby and mother surrogate sharing cells, has there been any studies on the effects on the surrogate's health, carrying a child that has no biological connection: is medication necessary to stop the implant being rejected as a foreign body, and if the worst happens and the woman dies due to the surrogacy (for instance during labour), is there any support for her family for the loss of their mother?

I'm not so anti surrogacy as others on here.
I'm more sympathetic to surrogacy where a woman cannot carry her own child than to those who hire a surrogate just because they can.
Similarly, I feel differently where its a surrogate who is happy to be one, than where a surrogate is either coerced or desparate.
The circumstances matter.

Does the motivation it make it any better for the child or any less chance that problems can happen?

I find it unsurprising you support the baby trade.

There is no type of surrogacy that does not treat at least one woman, if not two of more if eggs are also transacted, and the child as resources to exploit in a transaction.

The child becomes a contracted product and the woman who carries and grows that product becomes an exploited resource.

It actually doesn’t matter whether it is altruistically done or forced in any way. The situation cannot be any different, no matter what language some people use to hide that reality.

People can pad it with emotionally manipulative languages but it is an exploitation of women and infants to meet the demand of others.

(Demand in the sense of supply and demand but also in the sense of demanding this happen)

There are studies that show women who are pregnant with infants that they have not contributed the egg, have a higher rate of complications than those where they have contributed the egg.

I will see if I can find the one I am thinking of.

It is a higher risk pregnancy for both the pregnant woman and the foetus.

🌟

I wonder if those who consider surrogacy acceptable in any situation also consider growing an infant in a bag of nutrients on demand to be acceptable as well.

Because both of these child production routes are there to fulfil the demand of people who believe they should be able to produce a family on demand through tailored production.

Humans aren’t made of Lego shocker

it just seems so lacking in understanding not to realise that of course the body of a baby is built from the body of their mother in utero, regardless of whose gametes were used to create then. What else would it be built from?

Yep.

And in that potentially 9 month or longer window, that contract is 24 hours a day.

But apparently, it is far right Christian’s who are the problem and not the entitled people placing an order for an infant to be produced.

Really, when you strip away the emotional padding and focus on the people being exploited for the tailored production of that family, the situation seems quite a lot clearer. Yes, it is a natural human reproduction trait. When it is the result of sexual interaction, that is the risk the mother takes and hopefully by consent.

However, when did the human right to have a family become so twisted that it became acceptable to actively exploit others (even those you love) to obtain that family? I think it has become conceptually twisted by activists seeking to make something that is exploiting others to be seen as acceptable.

Just for the record, this is deliberately ripping off Janice Turner and her work. If you want serious journalists to write serious articles, people need to be prepared to pay for it. If you want endless AI slop, keep stealing journalism.