A new United Nations report detailing the harms the rent-a-womb industry wreaks on women and children says the answer to preventing further harm is “eradicating surrogacy in all its forms.”
Several countries such as Spain, Italy, and China already outlaw surrogacy. According to the 23-page report’s author Reem Alsalem, however, there needs to be a global effort to reduce the demand for surrogacy by criminalizing the people and institutes who promote and facilitate it.
“Surrogacy arrangements can amount to or resemble slavery, as they place surrogate mothers in a position in which any or all of the attributes of the right of ownership are exercised over them,” the report declares.
Surrogacy is often marketed to the masses as a generous and celebratory practice that helps wannabe parents’ dreams come true. From start to finish, however, the report outlines how the rent-a-womb process turns the sacred and dignified processes of babymaking and gestation into a legal and monetary transaction that harms the surrogate mothers, the children who are commissioned, and the people who commission them.
Renting wombs is an increasingly popular practice around the globe for various reasons, one of which Alsalem notes is “largely positive coverage of surrogacy in the media and its visibility among celebrities.” Additionally, Alsalem said the surrogacy industry is emboldened by “broader social narratives framing the desire for a child as a legitimate dimension of the right to family life, including for men in same-sex relationships, for whom surrogacy and adoption remain the main pathway to parenthood.”
Yet, surrogacy’s increasing presence in society has not come without consequences. In worst cases, the report explains, it goes beyond exploitation into blackmail, human trafficking, as well as psychological, physical and emotional abuse.
This corruption and its effects on those involved in the surrogacy industry is observed as early as the purchase of an egg. As Alsalem writes, financially vulnerable women and girls are bombarded with ads from fertility agencies. In many cases, Alsalem continues, these agencies are feeding into the demand for designer babies by asking women with specific physical features to “donate” their gametes.
What these agencies often deliberately fail to disclose, however, are the physically and mentally strenuous conditions egg suppliers will undergo including excessive bleeding, abdominal swelling, and discomfort, plus potential weight gain, nausea, infection, problems urinating, and, in some rare cases, death.
“Many, particularly girls, are groomed to register as egg donors to test their tolerance for medical procedures before entering a surrogacy arrangement. The digital nature of this reproductive market also enables the recruitment of surrogates and egg donors from countries where such practices are formally prohibited,” the report states.
Those women who are also recruited to carry someone else’s baby, Alsalem notes, “receive only a small fraction of the overall compensation, with the majority of the payment going to intermediaries.”
Whether or not the mothers get paid fairly, however, is only the tip of the iceberg, according to Alsalem. As outlined in the report, most of the women and girls who agree to rent out their wombs do not do so altruistically, but because the promise of payment would benefit their current financial standing.
“When women and girls feel that surrogacy is their only option, or when they lack knowledge of the consequences, their consent is neither free nor informed,” the report states.
This monetary motivation combined with the fact that surrogates are often referred to as “service providers” instead of mothers, Alsalem writes, “creates an impression that compromising their dignity and well-being could be justified by the existence of a contract.”
“Globally, most surrogate mothers come from lower-income backgrounds and have less social status compared with the commissioning parents,” the report continues. “Many lack access to effective legal remedies or advocacy mechanisms. Reportedly, migrant women are either specifically targeted for surrogacy or transferred to other countries for the purpose of impregnation and childbirth, often to circumvent legal frameworks.”
These surrogates who spend months nurturing infants in the womb only to part ways at birth also have a “three-fold risk of developing hypertension and pre-eclampsia” and report feeling heightened anxiety. In some cases, they are forced to undergo “selective reduction,” the abortion of unwanted multiples in the womb.
Alsalem is also careful to note that commissioning mothers do not escape surrogacy side effects such as “uncertainty and emotional strain.”
Similarly, the report acknowledges children commissioned through various womb rental arrangements around the world are known to have “lower mean gestational age at delivery, higher rates of preterm birth and higher rates of low birth weight” as well as an association with “an increased risk of birth defects.”
Babies born of rent-a-womb arrangements also suffer significant physical and emotional stress when they are taken from the arms of the only woman they’ve known for nine months. Alsalem also notes they are deprived of breastfeeding, which is “prevented in surrogacy and even contractually prohibited” but is undoubtedly “essential to an infant’s healthy development.”
“While research on the long-term emotional well-being of children born through surrogacy is limited, it indicates that the lack of a gestational connection places them at increased psychological risk,” Alsalem writes.
These babies are also vulnerable to future abuse due to the lack of screening and protocols that define legal adoption. As long as commissioning parents are willing to pay, surrogate mothers are required to hand over the baby. A recent case in Pennsylvania further proved that surrogacy can be easily exploited by pedophiles and abusers who are barred from fostering and adopting to gain proximity to children.
The international goal, the report concludes, should be banning surrogacy across the board. Until then, however, Alsalem believes “states must take action to prevent further harm and strengthen the protection of the rights of women and children involved in surrogacy arrangements.”
“Consent alone does not render surrogacy ethical. It is widely recognized that consent alone cannot justify human rights violations, including those associated with human trafficking, the sale of organs, slavery or torture,” she writes.
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