I recently watched this Channel 4documentary on the commercial ‘surrogacy’ industry in Georgia and it has really stuck with me how absolutely fucking awful it all is. If you are interested in researching the exploitation that surrogacy inflicts on women then I highly recommend watching this. There are plenty of surrogacy documentaries but this one is particularly in-depth, if highly upsetting to watch. I don’t see how anybody could watch it and still support commercial surrogacy. In the documentary we see 3 surrogates.
One of the women has 5 children and has fled an abusive husband and struggling to make ends meet, and is on her second surrogate pregnancy. The first surrogate pregnancy she had was twins, and she recounts the trauma of giving them up and states she loved them as if they were her own. Despite this trauma, she decided to have another surrogate pregnancy to provide for her children, and discusses how she is dreading giving another baby up.
The next woman is 20 with 2 young children of her own, also a domestic abuse survivor living in a refuge, whose ex-husband is in prison for attacking her during her previous pregnancy with her own youngest son. She’s carrying for a couple in Miami but just a few weeks in she appears to be having complications - bleeding and pain. She is terrified of losing the baby because she has nearly completed her allowed time in the refuge and she needs the money for somewhere for her and her children to live. She states that she believes her body is struggling with the pregnancy due to it not being her child, as her previous 2 pregnancies with her own children were not as hard on her body. Despite this, she’s already signed a contract for a second surrogacy in the future out of desperation. She discusses how the domestic violence refuge is rife with women turning to surrogacy.
The third woman is only seen briefly but the documentary goes on to show her give birth to her second surrogate baby. She is physically abused by the medical staff during the birth and has her stomach violently pushed without any form of consent to get the baby out quickly - it’s quite distressing to watch so be prepared for it if you watch the documentary. The baby’s intended parents are in China, and don’t intend to collect him until the baby’s Georgian legal documents are ready. As soon as he is born, the baby is ripped away from the surrogate without any form of physical contact to be cleaned, and then is immediately dumped in the hospital nursery for what will be the first of many days (likely weeks) before his intended parents will come to meet him. A newborn baby starved of any sort of parental love and contact for WEEKS. I’m sure this is common.
I recommend the documentary as it really shows the true horrors of commercial surrogacy.