This short article is from on a panel in response to a new book on Surrogacy by Susan Markens. The book has the greatest cover -- a pregnant belly, barcoded. It's a white pregnant belly on that cover -- the dark ones are cheaper. Googling for Surrogacy to find the image, ads popped up first -- how to hire a surrogate, how to get work as one. It's a business, and like so many American businesses, increasingly outsourced.
The very concept of surrogacy continues to infuriate me -- Every pregnant woman is the mother of the baby in her belly. I will stand by that no matter what technologies we develop, no matter whose genetic material is involved, no matter what she was thinking or planning (or not) when she got pregnant, and no matter what that woman chooses to do with that baby after it has left her body. If she wants to stop being its mother at birth, place it for adoption, I'm as supportive as only an adoptive mother can be. If she wants to sell it -- well, let's think about that. I'm still not ready to endorse baby-selling, but there's an argument to be had. But for me -- don't tell me it's not her baby while it's in her belly.
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