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Episode 23 Transcript

Ep. 23: Sensational Surrogacy

Introduction

Welcome to Fertility Cafe. I’m your host, Eloise Drane. On today’s episode, we’re going to look into some of the most sensationalized surrogacy cases that have hit the headlines. While a lot of these stories have the appeal of a juicy tabloid exposé, they’re worth examining as cautionary tales and as a way to understand why so many are vocally opposed to the practice.

If you’ve spent any time online googling surrogacy, you’ve likely encountered some form of opposition to the practice of surrogacy. While the majority of U.S. citizens support surrogacy, 71% according to a 2015 YouGov poll, there’s still nearly a third who are opposed.

Why is that? Let’s talk about it.

In a nutshell, there are groups out there that view surrogacy as a harmful and exploitative practice. They use phrases like “wombs for rent” and “bodies for sale.” They often paint a picture of desperate, impoverished women who are duped into using their bodies for the ease of rich couples. Ugh! This is SO far from the reality of surrogacy, as you and I both know.

Anti-surrogacy activists focus on the fertility industry as if it just exists to make money. The president of the conservative Center for Bioethics and Culture refers to the reproductive technology field as the “Fertility-Industrial Complex.” I know, insert eye roll. The same organization is opposed to pretty much all forms of assisted reproduction, and they are quite active in publishing negative content as well as lobbying to outlaw not only surrogacy, but also egg, sperm, and embryo donation.

I don’t want to give too much air time to groups like this, but as we start to dive into these awful stories of surrogacy gone wrong, I want you to remember that to groups like this, these examples are pure gold to add to their propaganda.

I firmly believe—and I bet you do too—that surrogacy is empowering for everyone involved. A woman who chooses to be a surrogate is exercising her right to choose what happens with her body. She has the right to use her biological ability to bring another life into this world for parents who had no other option.

Surrogacy gives intended parents hope where they were lacking it before—everyone deserves to experience parenthood if they so desire, and without alternatives to traditional family building, that wouldn’t be possible. And so, it’s up to people like us, who believe that surrogacy is an empowering and necessary path to parenthood, to do everything we can to protect its status, both legally and in the public’s perception.

The best way to do that? By doing your homework, adhering to best practices, and never, ever cutting corners, especially when it comes to the legal side of your surrogacy journey. If you plan to DIY as much of the process to save on costs, more power to you! I fully support that. However, you do NOT want to end up in the headlines because you skipped some important steps or failed to get a solid contract drafted. This is one of the major reasons why I developed a new course, Surrogacy Roadmap, to guide intended parents along the path of independent surrogacy: wisely, legally, and mindfully. If you’re thinking about going the independent route, check out the link in the show notes.

Alright, let’s get to it! We’re going to start off our Sensational Surrogacy series with what is arguably the most notorious and well-known case out there: The Baby M. Case of 1988.

The Baby M. Case (1988)

This case is the first time the issue of surrogacy wound up in an American court. After struggling with infertility for several years, William & Elizabeth Stern decided to pursue parenthood via surrogacy. They ran a newspaper ad seeking a surrogate. After placing the ad, the Sterns entered into a surrogacy agreement with Mary Beth Whitehead.

Mr. and Mrs. Stern were both professionally accomplished, a biochemist and a pediatrician, and therefore they were very well off. Mary Beth was not wealthy by any means: she was a high-school dropout, the wife of a sanitation worker and mother of two. The differences in socioeconomic status will wind up being important to the storyline as told by the media.

Before we go any further, there’s one key detail that makes this case different from the vast majority of surrogacies today: Mary Beth Whitehead acted as a traditional surrogate, using her own eggs. She was artificially inseminated with William Stern’s sperm after agreeing to a total compensation of $10,000.

Now, traditional surrogacy is very uncommon these days, and many reproductive professionals refuse to work with intended parents who choose this path. As you can imagine, the risk of emotional and legal complication is extremely high when the surrogate mother has a biological link to the baby. Legally, if the surrogate becomes emotionally attached to the baby, she could claim custody—which is exactly what happened here.

Remember how I mentioned that the best way to stay out of the headlines is to adhere to best practices and not cut any corners? While the Sterns and Mary Beth did create a contract, they did not do any mental health evaluations to determine her fitness or ability to understand the surrogacy process.

That’s a BIG mistake—especially in the case of traditional surrogacy.

After the birth, Mary Beth decided she was emotionally attached and wanted to keep the child, known publicly as Baby M.

Mary Beth initially gave the child over to the Sterns, as all parties had agreed to in the surrogacy contract. But days later, she and her husband kidnapped the infant. Yikes.

Long, expensive, and highly publicized court cases ensued, and although Baby M was ultimately placed with the Stern family, the case made a lasting impression on the American public. And not a good one.

So began the loud, public disagreement about “exploitation” and surrogacy. Opponents and journalists latched on to the economic disparity between the two sides, claiming that the wealthy Sterns took advantage of Mary Beth’s economic status. Mary Beth gave several media interviews about the situation, claiming that she was taken advantage of.

Feminists argued about how surrogacy fits in with a woman’s right to make reproductive decisions. Should women be “allowed” to use their wombs to carry another person’s baby? Or should women be “protected” from exploitation by making the practice illegal?

The unfortunate drama of the Baby M case cast a long shadow on surrogacy and became the default vision of what surrogacy is for the vast majority of people.

Because of this controversial case, the state of Michigan will still not honor surrogacy agreements. To this day, there is a misconception that most surrogates have difficulty “giving up” the children they carry, which as a three-time surrogate myself, can say is absolutely false.

The next case I want to talk about concerns another aspect of surrogacy that can go wrong: what happens when there’s a disagreement about termination?

Seraphina Harrell (2012)

The Seraphina Harrell case is another cautionary tale that made for sensational headlines and stirred intense ethical debate about surrogacy.

In 2012, Crystal Kelley agreed to be a gestational surrogate for a married couple who struggled with infertility. The contract they signed outlined the basics of compensation and included a provision that the pregnancy would be terminated in case of severe birth defects.

When Kelley was halfway through her pregnancy, an ultrasound revealed terrible news: the baby she was carrying had multiple birth defects, including a cyst in her brain and severe heart defects. The baby had a birth defect called holoprosencephaly that meant her brain would not fully divide into two hemispheres, and she had a condition that caused her organs to develop in the wrong places. Doctors said the baby would probably survive the pregnancy but would have around a 25% chance at a normal life. She would also have to endure multiple surgeries and procedures once born.

The intended parents were devastated, of course. They weighed their options and decided that it would be best to terminate the pregnancy. A letter sent to the surrogate on behalf of the parents explained their reasoning for this difficult decisions: “Given the ultrasound findings, (the parents) feel that the interventions required to manage (the baby’s medical problems) are overwhelming for an infant, and that it is a more humane option to consider pregnancy termination.”

The intended parents offered Kelley $10,000 to have an abortion, per their contract. The legal agreement they all signed stated that this was a possibility, and on paper, everyone agreed. In reality, they were NOT all on the same page.

While there was technically a clause in the contract about termination due to severe birth defects, the intended parents and Kelley had not actually talked through all the possible scenarios. If they had, it’s likely that they would not have moved forward with the match. What happened next got messy — really messy.

Kelley (the pregnant surrogate) refused the abortion, setting off a dramatic legal battle. Because the reality is, although you can agree to termination in a contract, it is not legally possible to enforce the agreement on an unwilling pregnant woman. No court in the United States will order that to happen, no matter who the genetic parents are or what a signed piece of paper says. Period.

This is exactly why all parties need to be in actual agreement, having worked through all possible scenarios with a mental health professional and an attorney who specializes in surrogacy arrangements.

At one point, the intended parents stopped pursuing termination and instead said they would immediately put the child in the state foster care system to be adopted. They were adamant that they would not be able to properly care for a child with such severe medical needs. Kelley did not feel right about this scenario either.

After a lot of tense legal back-and-forth, Kelley made a drastic move from Connecticut to Michigan (the headlines reported that she fled, adding to the sensation). Michigan is one of a few states where surrogacy contracts are totally invalid—according to that state’s law, she would be the baby’s legal parent, regardless of who the genetic parents were.

Seraphina was born full-term in June of 2012.

Kelley did not feel able to raise the baby, whom she named Seraphina. She was a single mother herself and was experiencing financial trouble (something that should have raised a red flag with the matching agency).

Ultimately, she arranged for the child to be adopted by a family with whom she had connected during the legal battle. Soon after Seraphina was born, the Harrell family of Massachusetts, who were already raising several children with special needs, adopted her with Kelley’s blessing. Seraphina lived until age 8. During her short life, she had three heart surgeries and numerous other procedures. Ultimately she passed away due to complications and infection following a surgery.

This case was a wake-up call for many in the industry, underscoring just how important it is to address the issue of termination head-on and to always ensure that everyone is in true agreement.

While this type of disagreement is much less likely today, there are still people out there who skip steps and wind up in a messy situation. The next story we’re going to look at is one of those.

Melissa Cook (2015)

In 2015, a 47-year-old California woman named Melissa Cook decided to become a compensated surrogate with a broker called Surrogacy International. Cook was a mother of four, including a set of triplets, and had served as a surrogate once before. According to her lawyer, she thought surrogacy was a rewarding way to supplement the salary she earned at her office job.

Surrogacy International matched her with a would-be father, known in court filings as C.M. C.M. was a 50-year-old single man, a postal worker who lives with his elderly parents in Georgia. Cook never met him in person, and because C.M. is deaf, Cassidy says the two never spoke on the phone or communicated in any way except via email. Already, I’m seeing some red flags, mainly the lack of communication between the intended father and the surrogate.

In May, Cook signed a contract promising her $27,000 to carry a pregnancy, plus a $6,000 bonus in case of multiples. A doctor implanted Cook with three male embryos, created with C.M.’s sperm and a donor egg. Another red flag: implanting multiple embryos without a clear discussion on the possibility of multiples.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine strongly recommends implanting only one embryo to avoid a multiple pregnancy. That’s just a guideline, though. Some clinics will implant more to increase the chances that at least one will be viable.

In this case, all three embryos implanted and began developing. CM reportedly pressured Melissa to “abort one to save on costs.” It became clear that CM was not financially able to support multiples nor the costs associated with the surrogacy pregnancy.

Cook claimed that she was unaware that her surrogacy contract included a clause allowing C.M. to request a selective reduction. This provision is common in surrogacy contracts, but again, this case highlights why it’s necessary for an actual discussion to take place among all involved parties and their attorneys.

Cook not only refused to abort any of the fetuses, but she became convinced that CM was unfit to be a father to the triplets. She went to court, trying to claim custody of all three babies, but because California has strong enforcement of surrogacy arrangements, she was not acknowledged as the parent.

She continued a years-long legal battle that eventually wound up at the Supreme Court. The father ultimately prevailed and the boys continue to live with him in Georgia. Cook continues to claim that the three boys live in squalor and are not thriving.

The agency owner eventually acknowledged in court proceedings that he had not conducted a home study to verify CM’s living situation but maintains that CM is a good father. Today, the boys remain with CM and Cook is a vocal opponent of surrogacy.

So what can we take away from this complicated story?

Well, first of all, ASRM guidelines about transferring only single embryos exist for a reason! Because the clinic did not follow this guideline, great risk and potential harm were caused. Cook’s pregnancy became much more high risk, both to her health and that of the triplets. While the outcome was ultimately positive, they were born ten weeks premature and had to receive several weeks of care in the NICU.

A multiples pregnancy also costs A LOT more – court documents reveal that the increased cost was a major reason why CM requested selective reduction. He said the weekly medical appointments were draining his bank account, and he needed to find a way to reduce costs. Thus, the request to terminate one or more of the fetuses.

This brings up two issues: first, IPs need to be crystal clear on the possible costs and risks involved with transferring multiple embryos. Was he fully informed and capable of understanding? Second, an IP must be prepared for unexpected costs or complications. He should not be cutting finances so close as to reach the bottom of his bank account. Had the agency thoroughly investigated his financial situation? Had he misrepresented himself? The use of an escrow agency can help mitigate some of this, which is why I strongly recommend using one.

This case also highlights the need for IPs to be screened, not just for financial fitness, but for general suitability to understand and navigate becoming a parent via surrogacy. The ASRM guidelines insist that IPs consult with a mental health professional and receive counseling prior to moving forward. While this isn’t an evaluation to determine an IP’s mental fitness, it is an opportunity for the mental health professional to uncover major red flags like deception. Had CM undergone any sort of evaluation? It’s unclear from the publicly available information, but I’m guessing this important step was either skipped or insufficiently completed. This case serves as a lesson, especially for agencies, on the importance of thoroughly vetting all parties, not only the surrogates.

A few final lessons to be had: this situation underscores the importance of the relationship between surrogates and IPs. In this case, the two parties had minimal communication. While there was a legitimate reason, to some extent (CM’s deafness), more should have been done to foster a professional yet friendly relationship. Surrogates and IPs should always trust and like each other.

And once again, all involved parties MUST be crystal clear on termination and selective reduction. You HAVE to work through all of the possible worst-case scenarios to avoid disaster.

Coerced abortion is as much a violation of a woman’s reproductive rights as coerced pregnancy. And whether or not one believes that surrogacy should be legal, Cook’s predicament shows how few protections there are for surrogate mothers when their agreements go bad.

SurroGenesis (2013)

It’s not just IPs and surrogates who have made headlines. SurroGenesis, an agency in California, was revealed to have defrauded clients of millions of dollars, leaving some intended parents unable to pay the surrogates who were carrying their children. The owner of the agency was directing IPs to use a particular escrow company…without revealing that she actually owned this institution. Rather than using the parents’ funds as intended, she funneled it away to make lavish purchases for herself.

The New York Times reported that one surrogate, pregnant with twins and confined to bed rest, received an eviction notice after the couple who had hired her was unable to reimburse her for lost wages. The owner was convicted of fraud and served jail time, and she was ordered to pay restitution to the victims.

The lesson to be had here is two-fold, I think. First, you have to be aware of the unfortunate truth that there are people out there who will prey on your immense desire to become a parent. You can’t approach independent surrogacy with naivete or you may find yourself getting taken advantage of. Second, it’s crucial to do the digging as you research which professionals you will work with. It’s hard to tell if greater investigation could have revealed any red flags with SurroGenesis, but it’s possible. Don’t be afraid to get nosy when you start looking into people, and always trust your gut.

The Montovers

The next story is a tale of what not to do in an independent surrogacy. The Montovers, a couple in Iowa, decided to grow their family via anonymous egg donation and surrogacy. They decided to go the independent route to save on costs. Independent surrogacy journeys can be just as successful as agency-led journeys—IF the intended parents do their homework and commit to not cutting any corners. I actually just developed a full course on how to complete a successful independent journey, where I share my 20+ years of experience as a surrogacy professional, specifically to help people avoid headline-worthy mistakes. Check out the show notes for a link to Surrogacy Roadmap if this is something you’ve been considering.

Back to the Montovers now: the couple decided to plan an ad on Craigslist and other online message boards to search for a surrogate. Some people might cringe at the idea of using Craigslist, but online ads are actually a fine way to begin an independent search, with one big caveat: you absolutely MUST have a process in place for screening and vetting anyone who reaches out.

In this case, a woman answered the ad and offered to carry for them. The woman, known as T.B. in court documents, and her husband both had children from previous marriages, but she was now unable to conceive without IVF. So, part of the arrangement with the Montovers was that they agreed to pay for T.B. to undergo a round of IVF after the surrogacy pregnancy, in the hope that she and her husband could have a child of their own. A bit of an unconventional request for compensation, but okay.

The Montovers and T.B. signed a gestational carrier agreement agreeing to this, as well as agreeing to pay for all medical costs related to the surrogacy. T.B. became pregnant with the Montovers’ baby in April 2016, and she was having twins! All seemed to be going according to plan, but then things changed.

T.B. started asking the Montovers for more money, outside the scope of the agreement. They disagreed about what could be shared on social media about the pregnancy, and they argued over who could be included in medical conversations about the babies. T.B. claims that the intended mother told her she wasn’t allowed to get medical treatment without her approval—she started to feel like they were controlling what she could and couldn’t do with her body. That is never okay in a surrogacy arrangement!

At one point, T.B. accused the intended father of using racial slurs and abusive language via Facebook messages. At this point, the only communication happening was between lawyers, with neither the IPs or the surrogate willing to speak to one another.

T.B. delivered the twins on August 31st – they were 13 weeks premature and had to be cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit. Sadly, one of the twins died 8 days after birth.

Tragic all around, but it gets messier: T.B. had not informed the Montovers that their babies had been born! She had decided to keep the babies and cut off all communication with the IPs. She said that she didn’t trust the intended parents to raise the babies in a healthy home, given the abuse she says she experienced.

The Montovers had no idea their twins had been born, and they had no idea that one had passed away after birth. T.B. even had the baby cremated without the parents’ knowledge.

Can you even imagine?? By October 24th, the Montovers STILL didn’t know any of this had happened, but they filed a petition to the court to make sure their surrogacy contract would be enforced. Only then did they learn of the birth of both twins and the death of one. The court ruled that the contract must be enforced and ordered T.B. to surrender custody of the surviving child. Iowa’s Supreme Court upheld this ruling after lots of legal back-and-forth.

What’s the moral of the storyhere?

As an intended parent, if you turn to the internet to search for a surrogate, you still need to do all of the background checks and evaluations. Did the Montovers conduct a background check, request a credit report, or do any further digging into T.B.’s life? Did they have a proper mental health screening conducted? Was the surrogacy contract drafted by a competent attorney and reviewed with a fine-toothed comb? It’s unclear exactly which corners were cut, but clearly something in the process broke down.

And from the perspective of a surrogate, you need to know that you’re choosing the IPs as much as they are choosing you. You need to really get to know each other, make sure you have a connection, AND make sure your best interests are respected. In this case, it’s unclear if T.B. had her own attorney to look over the contract and advocate for her when the contract was originally drafted.

One positive thing that came out of this unfortunate case is that the Iowa Supreme Court ruling affirmed that gestational surrogacy contracts are enforceable. There hadn’t been a court precedent in the state before this, so now Iowa is all-the-more friendly toward surrogacy.

When Intended Parents Split

Surrogacy stories often hit the news when something goes awry in the intended parents’ relationship—particularly when it involves celebrities.

Actress Sherri Shepherd and her then-husband Lamar Sally used an egg donor and Lamar’s sperm along with the help of a surrogate to have a baby. Midway through the pregnancy, the couple split. Sherri claimed that her ex tricked her into signing the surrogacy documents, and that she did not wish to be named as a legal parent to a child she had no genetic link to. As the legal mother, she would be required to pay child support. She fought that designation in court, but the court ruled in favor of Lamar. This dispute got a lot of attention from celebrity gossip sites like TMZ, as the two sides gave multiple interviews badmouthing one another. Most surrogacy contracts have clauses that outline what will happen in the case of divorce, separation, or death of the intended parents.

Celebrity conflict aside, there is one landmark case to discuss that actually did a lot to define the legal understanding of parentage when it comes to surrogacy. This case is often cited in legal and ethical discussions surrounding surrogacy.

In the mid 1990’s, John and Luanne Buzzanca used an anonymous egg donor, sperm donor, and a gestational surrogate to conceive a child. Before the child was born, John filed for divorce and claimed that because he was not biologically related, he had no parental responsibilities.

Turns out, it doesn’t work like that. Here’s what happened:

Luanne began raising the child, Jaycee, but after a few months she hired an attorney to help get herself declared the legal mother and John the legal father. That way, she could collect child support to help her raise her daughter.

At one point, a lower court ruled that Jaycee had no parents at all, a decision that was of course appealed. Ultimately the appeals court agreed that when intended parents initiate medical procedures to create a child, they are that child’s parents. It set an important precedent for California law, and it’s used as a legal standard elsewhere.

Another bizarre case involving divorce and surrogacy actually ended with the surrogate being named the legal mother, which is extremely rare. The trouble here can be traced to financial problems on the part of the intended parents.

Susan Ring had been a surrogate for this couple before, so when they approached her to ask for a sibling journey, she didn’t hesitate. They moved forward with the help of an agency, and Susan became pregnant with twins using the intended father’s sperm and a donor egg.

Early into her second trimester, Susan started to be notified of past due medical bills, some having already been referred to a collection agency. Of course, this was disturbing because IPs are obligated to take care of all pregnancy-related expenses. She asked the agency to look into things, and that’s when she and the agency owners found out that not only were the parents facing severe financial trouble, they were also divorcing. Oh, and the intended mother had decided she no longer wanted the twins.

The intended father claimed he did want the babies, but because his financial situation was so dire, he would be forced to put the twins in foster care for what he claimed would be a short amount of time.

At that point, Susan was determined to keep the babies out of foster care. Their mother didn’t want them, their father wasn’t stable enough to care for them…what now? That was the question she took to an attorney to help her do what she could to protect the babies. Unfortunately for this situation, being in California, the laws were solidly in favor of protecting the intended parents’ rights.

Eventually, the two sides settled out of court, with the intended parents agreeing to relinquish parental rights. Susan was named the legal mother, cared for the babies after they were born, and found a loving couple to adopt the children.

It’s hard to tell where exactly this situation went off the rails. Did the agency fail to do their due diligence? Did the parents misrepresent themselves? Were mental health evaluations skipped? Probably, it was a combination of factors. The most important thing though is that the babies are happy, healthy, and being cared for by their adoptive parents.

Unrelated Twins?

Another case that hit the news would end up being less about people behaving badly and more about a bizarre “what are the odds” series of unlikely events.

In 2016, Jessica Allen became a surrogate through an agency in San Diego. She was matched with a Chinese couple, and she became pregnant after one of their embryos was implanted. Everyone was quite surprised when the first ultrasound showed that she was carrying twins. Unlikely, given that only one embryo was transferred, but definitely not impossible. The parents were thrilled, and Allen was happy to learn that her compensation would increase because of the twin pregnancy.

Here’s where a big mistake was made: no one had mentioned that the two fetuses were developing in separate gestational sacs. That’s impossible in the case of identical twins, which share a sac after a single embryo splits.

Because only one embryo had been transferred, something else was clearly going on. But, since medical staff had either not noticed or chosen not to mention the separate sacs, Allen and the IPs had no idea anything was amiss.

When Allen delivered the babies, she didn’t get much of a look at them, as they were immediately given over to the legal parents. That’s pretty standard for gestational surrogacy agreements. She saw a picture that the parents sent via text message, thought the babies looked different, but that was the end of her contact with the other family for awhile.

A month later, the mother sent a picture asking Allen why the babies looked so different from one another. A DNA test was performed, and they found out that one of the babies was biologically related to Allen and her partner. It turns out, Allen became pregnant after having sex with her partner following the embryo transfer.

This phenomenon is called superfetation, and it’s extremely rare. To add even more to the unlikeliness of the situation, Allen and her partner had been using condoms at the time!

Knowing now that one of the babies was her own biological son, she and her partner of course wanted custody. The agency threw up some major roadblocks. They told Allen she would need to return around $20,000, to account for the extra pay she received for multiples and to cover the cost of care for the infant that the intended parents had incurred. The agency said if she didn’t pay, the baby would be put up for adoption, and the adoptive parents could pay the fees. Now, as an agency owner myself, I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I’ll keep those to myself for now.

Eventually the baby was given to his biological parents, but not before some intense legal battles and a lot of headlines that tarnished the image of surrogacy. This case also provides some clear justification for surrogacy agreements to address a surrogate’s sexual activity. Most contracts require the surrogate to abstain for a certain period of time surrounding the embryo transfer to avoid this particular complication.

Celebrity Surrogacy

The last topic I want to tackle is the perception of surrogacy as a means for the rich and famous to avoid the inconveniences of pregnancy. There are plenty of celebrities who became parents via gestational surrogacy, and the vast majority of them did so after struggling with infertility or other medical issues.

And yet, looking at the comment section of stories about celebrities working with surrogates, you’ll see all sorts of claims that they’re exploiting poor women to save their own bodies or careers. That perception was unfortunately perpetuated after New York Times fashion reporter Alex Kuczynski published an article titled “Her Body, My Baby.” The article itself actually did a wonderful job of laying out her journey to surrogacy, which included over 5 years of battling infertility. There was understandable chatter and debate about the ethics of the practice, but the controversy really ramped up when Thomas Frank published a highly critical opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal about Kuczynski’s surrogacy.

His article was titled “Rent-a-Womb is Where Market Logic Leads” where he railed against reproduction for hire. He paints her journey as if she made the choice for cosmetic and vanity reasons only, failing to mention her 11 unsuccessful IVF cycles and 4 miscarriages. Pretty important points to omit.

The damage was done, however, and the public image of surrogacy as a legitimate and ethical practice was harmed. Even today, celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Nicole Kidman, who choose surrogacy for health reasons, are accused of making the decision out of selfish ambition. To that, I say: so what if they did? Are women not entitled to making reproductive decisions while also protecting their careers? Pregnancy does alter a person’s body and overall health, so if a woman has a career where those things are crucial, why wouldn’t surrogacy be a sound choice? I’m thinking not just of actresses and models, but also female military officers or professional athletes, for whom a pregnancy would totally derail their career for at least nine months, likely more.

Some interesting questions to raise. I’m hopeful that as gestational surrogacy becomes more common and as states like New York work to enact meaningful, ethical regulations on the industry, public opinion will keep improving.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. If you’re considering independent surrogacy, please do us all a favor and stay out of the headlines! Check out Surrogacy Roadmap for your guide to staying on the straight and narrow.

I hope you’ve found this discussion helpful as you weigh your next steps. You can follow Fertility Café on its new Instagram and Facebook page under Family Inceptions. If you haven’t yet, go to your listening platform of choice and subscribe, rate and review this podcast. We’d also love you to share Fertility Café with friends and family members who would benefit from the information shared. Join us next week for another conversation on modern family building.

I hope you’ve found this discussion helpful as you weigh your next steps. You can follow Fertility Café on its new Instagram and Facebook page under Family Inceptions. If you haven’t yet, go to your listening platform of choice and subscribe, rate and review this podcast. We’d also love you to share Fertility Café with friends and family members who would benefit from the information shared. Join us next week for another conversation on modern family building.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Remember: “love has no limits – neither should parenthood.”

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