Last night I saw an interesting piece on the local 10pm news. Typically I try to avoid watching the 10pm news because I don’t like seeing all that negativity right before I go to bed (NYC news is the worst!). But I caught a snippet that peaked my interest, so I decided to stay “tuned in”.
The story was about women who pay other women to be a surrogate for them. At first I thought they were talking about women who find or hire a surrogate because they can’t physically carry a child themselves, due to a medical condition or a safety concern (for mom or baby). While I don’t personally know anyone who has used a surrogate, I’ve see surrogacy situations on The Learning Channel’s, “a baby story” several times.
One episode of the show that was particularly touching to me, was that of a woman who was a surrogate for her sister and brother-in-law. The biological mother of the child wasn’t able to carry a baby because she had to undergo chemotherapy and a hysterectomy due to cancer. The couple had frozen the woman’s eggs right after she was diagnosed and her doctors were able to “make” an embryo and the woman’s sister successfully carried and birthed the baby. What a beautiful gift!
But that’s not the type of surrogate this news story was referring to. The women “featured” in this clip were women who didn’t want to physically carry a child because it would ruin their figure, or because they had work or social obligations not “conducive” to carrying a child. Interestingly none of them showed their faces for the piece.
The cost for a “social surrogacy?” About $100,000!
Although this “social surrogacy” phenomena is completely strange to me, I do acknowledge that there’s a market for all sorts of strange things that I can’t appreciate and don’t understand (maybe this is a great “side hustle” for someone?). That being said, I won’t even touch the emotional and social aspects of this topic, but will instead say that I’m thankful to live in a country where each of us are able to make our own decisions, even if other people don’t like them.
I personally would never pay anyone to carry a child for me because I was afraid “the child” would give me stretch marks, or keep me from attending a special social function. I would however consider finding a surrogate if I wasn’t physically able to carry a child. I would also consider being a surrogate for a close friend or family member who couldn’t have a child because of a medical issue. I wouldn’t, however, be a surrogate for a woman who’d rather look good in her swimsuit, then carry her own child. Even if the payout was $100k!
So what do you think?…Would you carry another women’s baby for $100k? Would you pay someone $100k to carry your baby (if you were physically able, just didn’t want to do so for some reason?). If your partner is a women, would you be OK with her carrying another woman’s child (if the biological mother of the child was able to carry the child herself?)
Image: Gabi Menashe