Surrogacy: No

T ransportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted a photo from a hospital bed in August 2021. He and his husband, Chasten, were fully dressed, holding their new twins. The human response is to wish them all the best and to pray for the children, if you do such things. At the same time, we can’t forget that there is someone who is missing. We, as a culture, can’t erase the mother. And yet we do.

There was a minor controversy in conservative circles around Thanksgiving. Commentator Guy Benson, who is in a same-sex marriage, similarly announced the birth of a child. Buttigieg, as far as I know, never clarified whether his twins were adopted or from a surrogate mother — it’s not absurd to ponder the latter. Benson, on the other hand, was open about surrogacy. He announced his news on social media and received congratulations and also an avalanche of responses about the morality of surrogacy.

Twitter — or X, now — is probably the last place to have such a debate. The fact is, once a baby exists, we must welcome the child. At the same time, such announcements are reason for pause. Is it right to make babies by any and all means available to us? Especially when we have so many children in foster care in the United States?

To ask these questions is not to judge couples who have chosen surrogacy. The questions are necessary as our medicine becomes more advanced. Religious believers are not the only ones raising such issues. Some secular feminists ask the same question: Isn’t a woman being exploited in the process of surrogacy? Egg “donation” for in vitro fertilization raises similar questions. A college kid who could use some money is stimulated to overproduce eggs — and then often can’t have children herself when the time comes.

When he spoke against surrogacy at the start of the new year, Pope Francis may have surprised the world. But perhaps his words shouldn’t have surprised anyone. During his papacy, he has consistently opposed attacks on innocent human life and lifted up the dignity of women — and mothers in particular. In his annual audience with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, he said:

The path to peace calls for respect for life, for every human life, starting with the life of the unborn child in the mother’s womb, which cannot be suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking. In this regard, I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs. A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract. Consequently, I express my hope for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally. At every moment of its existence, human life must be preserved and defended; yet I note with regret, especially in the West, the continued spread of a culture of death, which in the name of a false compassion discards children, the elderly and the sick.

There are so many issues in there that should rock our consciences. The Covid pandemic made scandalously clear that we do not care for the most vulnerable elderly as we ought. Remember the Little Sisters of the Poor who had to go to the Supreme Court during the Obama administration over a totally unnecessary mandate that required them to violate their conscience rights over contraception — and abortion — coverage to employees? The Little Sisters of the Poor help the elderly poor die surrounded by love and compassionate health care. From womb to tomb, human life should be reverenced, whatever we believe about how we got here and where we are going.

Jennifer Lahl at the Center for Bioethics and Culture has devoted years to telling the story of women “commodified” by surrogacy. It happens under the radar, as we celebrate new life and love and the hope of dreams for the baby. “Like egg donation, surrogacy is harmful to both the woman who carries the child and to the child,” Lahl has written. “The health risks to the woman, who must take powerful synthetic hormones to prepare her body to accept an embryo, are real and serious.”

There’s also this reality for the families involved:

Most surrogacy requires that the surrogate mother already have children as proof that she is able to carry a child to term. However, no one has done any studies on these existing children who observe their mothers keeping some babies and giving others away. The message surrogacy sends to these children seems both clear and dangerous: Mommy keeps some of her babies, and mommy gives some of her babies away to nice people who can’t have babies of their own. And often mommy is paid to do this.

Pope Francis — often thought of as a more progressive figure by many, as far as popes are concerned — forced headlines about surrogacy and, with it, the kind of reflection that I always pray January brings. Many thousands of us are headed to Washington, D.C., for the March for Life in coming days. “With Every Woman, for Every Child” is the theme this year. The point is that the pro-life movement wants to walk with anyone who feels fear and confusion and desperation as they are faced with the prospect of new life. That includes the woman who has been exploited by surrogacy, with the best of intentions of all involved. Also, any woman who has had an abortion. There is judgment-free healing to be had. And it certainly includes any woman pregnant and afraid right now.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.