A few weeks ago, I came across a thread online where a woman, perfectly healthy and financially comfortable, shared her decision to use a surrogate, not because she couldn’t carry a pregnancy but because she simply didn’t want to. The responses were a mix of admiration, envy, and downright outrage. “This is abuse,” someone wrote. “It’s selfish. It’s turning motherhood into a business transaction.”
It made me pause. We’re in a world where women fight tooth and nail for the right to make choices about their bodies. And yet, when some of those choices make others uncomfortable, especially when they challenge traditional narratives of womanhood, we start questioning their morality.
Surrogacy, once seen as a beacon of hope for women who couldn’t carry children due to medical conditions, is now being re-examined under a different light. What happens when it’s chosen as a lifestyle decision rather than a last resort? What happens when it becomes commercialised?
Today, I want to write on that hard conversation. Not to draw conclusions for you, but to hold up both sides of the argument and ask: What really bothers us about surrogacy: is it the act itself or the audacity of choice?
Understanding Surrogacy Today
Let’s get some basics out of the way. Surrogacy is an arrangement where a woman, known as the surrogate, carries and delivers a baby on behalf of someone else. It’s a deeply intimate act, often shaped by emotion, legalities, and now, evolving motivations.
There are two main types of surrogacy:
- Traditional surrogacy, where the surrogate is also the egg donor. She is biologically related to the child she carries. This type is less common today, mostly due to legal and emotional complexities.
- Gestational surrogacy, where the surrogate has no genetic link to the baby. An embryo is created through IVF using the intended parents’ egg and sperm (or donors) and is implanted into the surrogate’s uterus. This is now the most widely used method globally.
But surrogacy isn’t just a matter of biology, it lives on a moral and financial spectrum too:
- Altruistic surrogacy is built on goodwill. The surrogate is not paid beyond reasonable expenses like healthcare, transport, and legal fees. This model is common in countries like the UK, Canada, and parts of Australia where commercial surrogacy is banned.
- Commercial surrogacy, on the other hand, includes monetary compensation. It’s more prevalent in countries where laws allow surrogates to be paid for their time, effort, and physical/emotional labour.
In recent years, surrogacy has become a global service industry, and like all industries, it’s shaped by supply, demand, and a web of personal stories. Intended parents now come from all walks of life:
- Heterosexual couples struggling with infertility or recurrent miscarriage
- Same-sex couples seeking biological ties to their children
- Single individuals (especially men) who want to be parents
- And increasingly, women who choose surrogacy not because they have to but because they want to
And it’s this last category, the one where surrogacy is not a medical solution but a lifestyle decision, that has people shifting uncomfortably in their seats. It’s this last group that is shaking the table. now.
Some female celebrities have taken this path. Their public decisions have sparked debates that go far beyond entertainment gossip. Others are everyday women, executives, artists, and entrepreneurs, who simply don’t want to endure pregnancy, for reasons ranging from trauma to convenience to career. They’re healthy and fertile but uninterested in the bodily, emotional, and sometimes identity-shifting demands of carrying a pregnancy.
And so, they outsource it.
This shift is causing ripple effects across public opinion. On one hand, it’s a sign of how far reproductive choice has come. On the other hand, it has led to growing concern that surrogacy is being commodified—no longer a last resort, but an elective service for those who can afford it.
The Critics Opinion
For those who support surrogacy in principle, the commercialisation of surrogacy, especially when chosen by healthy, fertile women who simply prefer not to carry their pregnancies, feels like the start of a dangerous, slippery slope. At first glance, it may look like progress: more choices, more freedom, and more technological options to create and grow families. But beneath that surface, a complex set of ethical tensions starts to unfold.
Their central worry is that once surrogacy becomes a choice, not a need, it will encourage more women, especially those in economically vulnerable positions, to become surrogates purely for financial gain. What looks like an empowered decision on paper can, in reality, be an act of survival. The womb becomes a service. Pregnancy becomes labour in the literal sense of it.
And here’s another dimension: as more wealthy people opt for surrogacy, the demand (and price) goes up. Surrogacy becomes a luxury that only the privileged can afford, pushing it further out of reach for those with legitimate medical needs but who can’t pay or are pushed to the bottom of the waiting list, unable to compete in a market that rewards wealth, not urgency.
They argue that this is a new form of class-based exploitation where wealthy people outsource pregnancy to poorer women. The power imbalance is uncomfortable.
Then there’s the emotional critique, which is perhaps harder to quantify but no less significant. Critics fear that we are normalising a certain detachment in the reproductive process. That surrogates may be expected explicitly or not to disconnect emotionally from the child they carry, to “deliver and disappear”. That this expectation, when wrapped in legal contracts and compensation, reduces the entire experience to logistics: timeline, embryo transfer, fetal scans, delivery date, cheque cleared. This is reducing something that is deeply human into something transactional.
The Supporters Opinion
But then, there’s the other side of this coin, and it’s just as compelling.
Supporters of commercial surrogacy say all the outrage by the critics is not really about ethics or exploitation. They say the problem some people have with commercial surrogacy, especially when it’s medically necessary, is simply that a woman dared to say, “I don’t want to be pregnant, and I don’t have to be.” That’s a bold statement, and for some, it feels offensive. But for many women, feminists, reproductive rights advocates, and even ordinary people who believe in personal freedom, it’s a reminder of what true bodily autonomy should look like.
This group says people are paid to clean homes, care for our children, and massage our bodies. People are paid to donate eggs, freeze embryos, and reshape their own bodies. So why is it suddenly unethical to pay someone to carry a child, especially if she wants to?
They counter that financial compensation does not automatically mean someone is being exploited. In fact, many surrogates, particularly in countries where the process is tightly regulated, describe their experience as empowering. They enter the agreement willingly. They’re well-informed. They’re respected, medically supported, and fairly paid. For some, it’s one of the most meaningful things they’ll ever do: helping someone else become a parent.
They push back, saying that what really rattles society is the changing shape of motherhood. The idea that you can be a mother without being pregnant. That you can have a child without going through labour. That you can choose an easier path and still be valid. For generations, we’ve been told that pain and sacrifice are part of the price of motherhood. So when someone sidesteps that pain, people start to question it.
Can We Find a Middle Ground?
I don’t think the answer is to shut down commercial surrogacy completely. And I don’t think it should be a free-for-all either. What we really need is regulation that’s built with compassion and common sense. Something that protects everyone involved not just legally, but emotionally too.
Honestly, I’m all for stepping away from the extremes that both sides poses. There has to be a middle ground.
What would surrogacy look like if we truly respected everyone at the table? Not just the person who gets to take the baby home, but also the woman who carried that baby for months. Not just the dream of becoming a parent, but the person who made that dream possible with her body, her time, her care.
That’s the kind of surrogacy I can stand behind, one rooted in dignity, honesty, and mutual respect. Some countries are already doing this thoughtfully. In places where surrogacy is legal but tightly regulated, the emphasis isn’t just on legality, it’s on dignity. These systems often include:
- Ethical contracts, including clauses that can’t be enforced if they threaten the surrogate’s health, dignity, or freedom.
2. Psychological screening for both the intended parents and the surrogate, to make sure everyone involved understands the emotional weight of what’s ahead.
3. Independent legal representation for both sides, so the surrogate isn’t just signing a contract—she’s fully aware of her rights and protected from being manipulated or misled.
4. Caps on compensation, to prevent bidding wars that could drive up costs and attract surrogates for the wrong reasons.
5. Comprehensive medical insurance and postnatal care, so the surrogate isn’t left to fend for herself once the baby is delivered.
These safeguards may not eliminate every risk but they create a more balanced playing field. A space where decisions are made with clarity, not pressure. Where women are treated as people, not vessels. Where intended parents don’t feel like buyers, and surrogates don’t feel like tools.
Could this be the global standard? Could we learn from these models and create systems that protect everyone involved, especially those who are most vulnerable? It won’t be perfect. No system is.
Human relationships, especially the kind that involve life, family, and money, are rarely black and white. But thoughtful regulation is still better than moral chaos. It gives us a framework to work within. It reminds us that choice, without protection, can quickly become something else entirely.
Why This Conversation Matters
This topic is not just about pregnancy or contracts. It’s about how we define motherhood. It’s about power. Class. Choice. Control.
When I think about the two sides of this debate, I realise they’re often talking past each other. One side fears a future where the womb is a commodity. The other dreams of a world where no woman is shamed for choosing a different path.
And both fears and dreams are valid.
I don’t have a final answer. I don’t think anyone truly does. But what I do have is a growing belief that nuance must have a seat at the table. We cannot afford to flatten these stories into black-and-white takes. People are complex. Our bodies are complex and the decisions that come with them are even more so.
Conclusion:
Commercialising surrogacy is neither an entirely dystopian nor entirely utopian idea. It lives somewhere in the messy middle, where moral ethics, economics, emotion, and empowerment collide.
At the end of the day, whether you fully support commercial surrogacy, stand firmly against it, or sit somewhere in the middle, it’s worth asking yourself: what informed your opinion? Is it your values? Your upbringing? Religion? Personal experience? Or something else. And more importantly, is that opinion fixed? Or could it shift tomorrow, if you saw a story that challenged what you thought you knew? Have you looked past the headlines and into the real, complex lives of the women involved, both those who become surrogates and those who seek them out?
If you find yourself uncomfortable with the idea of a woman who is perfectly healthy choosing surrogacy, it’s okay to ask yourself why. What is it about her choice that stirs something in you? Is it about fairness? Morality? Or maybe… tradition?
Our present day reality is this: some women will carry babies for money. Others will pay not to carry at all. Some will call that abuse. Others will call it freedom.
We don’t have to all agree. But we owe it to ourselves and to each other to question what we believe, and why. Especially when it involves women’s bodies, women’s choices, and the quiet, complicated things we don’t always say out loud.
Stay frosty.
