(Oregon Right to Life News) — What is gestational surrogacy? Is it ethical? How should pro-life advocates think through this relatively novel phenomenon?
For many pro-life advocates, the basics about abortion and the pro-life message can be easy to understand and express: It’s wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being, abortion does that, and therefore, abortion is wrong and should be opposed. But what about issues that go beyond those fundamentals?
Gestational surrogacy is one such issue, and it’s caused some confusion among pro-life advocates.
Let’s get into the details:
What is Gestational Surrogacy?
HealthLine defines gestational surrogacy as “the process where a person carries a pregnancy for someone else — the ‘intended parents.’” This is accomplished using in vitro fertilization (IVF), whereby sperm and egg are joined in a laboratory to create an embryo. The embryo is then implanted into the uterus of the surrogate (also called a “gestational carrier” or “host”).
According to the CDC, there were 67,826 “embryo transfer cycles” using a gestational surrogate between 2013 and 2022 in the U.S. Findsurrogate.com estimates that there is a 45–55% chance per transfer that the embryo will survive to birth. The global surrogacy market is valued at roughly between $20 and $30 billion.
Who Are Gestational Surrogates?
Gestational surrogates are women who have agreed – usually for commercial reasons but sometimes for “altruistic” (non-economic) reasons – to carry babies who are not their own for the purpose of transferring those children, once born, to the individuals for whom they are intended.
Commercial surrogates are often women experiencing economic insecurity. GuidetoSurrogacy.com estimates that “First-time surrogate mother compensation typically falls between $60,000 and $85,000, while experienced carriers command $80,000 to $120,000 in base pay.”
According to a United Nations report in July, 2026, “Globally, most surrogate mothers come from lower-income backgrounds compared with commissioning parents, and often lack access to effective legal remedies or advocacy mechanisms. Many of them have experienced multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and poverty long before entering surrogacy arrangements, which capitalize on these stark inequalities, leading to further marginalization.”
Gestational surrogates almost always have no genetic relationship or legal right to the child they carried within their bodies for nine months.
McKenna West, a gestational surrogate in the U.S., made headlines this year when she refused to abort the baby she was carrying for a California couple when the unborn baby was diagnosed with a heart abnormality. Stories like West’s raise serious ethical concerns about surrogacy.
Who Uses Surrogates?
There are several categories of people who seek out commercial surrogacy. These include couples experiencing infertility; single people who want biologically-related children; women who do not want to undergo pregnancy; and homosexual couples, especially homosexual men.
So-called “altruistic” surrogacy, in which payment is not a feature, is less common and is more typically seen within families. For example, a man’s sister can carry his baby if he cannot biologically have a child with his wife or same-sex partner.
The Ethics of Surrogacy
Commercial surrogacy, simply put, is the paid rental of a woman’s body to obtain a child. It is fundamentally transactional, treating pregnancy as a commercial function, the woman as a producer, and the baby as a product.
While pro-life advocates acknowledge that a desire for children is in itself good, not all means of bringing children into one’s family are justified. Pro-life thinkers point out that the practice of surrogacy is fundamentally different from adoption and involves serious violations of the dignity of both the child and the surrogate.
The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network highlighted some of the serious ethical concerns in a succinct summary:
“A few of the many issues raised by surrogacy include: the rights of the children produced; the ethical and practical ramifications of the further commodification of women’s bodies; the exploitation of poor and low income women desperate for money; the moral and ethical consequences of transforming a normal biological function of a woman’s body into a commercial transaction.”
A 2021 article published by the European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology held, while offering a tepid defense of so-called “altruistic surrogacy,” that “female exploitation constitutes an incontrovertible issue against commercial surrogacy.”
While much of the objections to surrogacy have to do with making pregnancy and childbirth a paid proposition, The National Catholic Bioethics Center argues that “[a]ll forms of surrogacy are offenses against the rights of children and parents,” adding that “[a]ltruistic surrogacy retains most of the unethical qualities of commercial surrogacy minus the exploitation of poor women and the repugnant feature of profit-making individuals and entities.”
“Surrogacy implies that a child is a right, commodifying both a child and a woman’s womb regardless of the physical, psychological, and moral repercussions for both,” wrote Juliette Hayes for Focus on the Family.
Addressing comparisons with adoption, Hayes explained that, while “adoption is self-sacrificing in nature, providing a home for a child who needs one” and thereby helping “a child already in a difficult situation,” surrogacy by contrast “creates that difficult situation, often with little regard to what is best for the child.”
And the risks to children can be grave.
“Children born through surrogacy typically experience immediate separation from the woman who carried them during pregnancy – a process that can be emotionally and developmentally significant, given the importance of early bonding,” The United Nations pointed out in its July document about surrogacy. “They may face long-term identity struggles, which are intensified if they are conceived through gamete donation.”
The United Nations pointed out that the “power imbalance” between “commissioning parents” and surrogates “can lead to women being pressured to waive the confidentiality of medical procedures, submit to interventions that endanger their health, or terminate pregnancies when commissioning parents demand it.”
In addition, the United Nations noted, background checks are rarely required for the “intended parents,” a gap that “poses additional risks for children, including the risk of sexual exploitation of girls.” In a high-profile example of the dangerous implications of the substantial lack of safety checks, a Pennsylvania man who obtained a baby via surrogacy last year was revealed to be a child sex offender.
In 2023, experts from 75 countries signed the Declaration of Casablanca, stating that surrogacy “violates human dignity and contributes to the commodification of women and children.”
Commercial surrogacy is banned or implicitly prohibited in much of the European Union. Article 3 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that “In the fields of medicine and biology, the following must be respected in particular: […]the prohibition on making the human body and its parts as such a source of financial gain.” The practice is broadly legal in most of the United States, though some states impose limits.
Even outside of addressing the ethics of surrogacy, pro-life advocates reject the use of IVF itself due to its inherent commodification of human life, as well as the related freezing or destruction of embryos and the routine “selective reductions” (abortions) of undesired embryos after they’ve been implanted. In the U.S., it’s estimated that over a million human embryos created through IVF are currently frozen in long-term storage.
What Are the Options for Couples Experiencing Infertility?
Pro-life advocates – including Oregon Right to Life – recognize that couples who cannot naturally conceive children can endure tremendous suffering as a result of their infertility. At the same time, it is important to honor not only the desires of adults, but also the rights and inherent dignity of children, including the unborn.
Thus, instead of advocating for practices like IVF and surrogacy, pro-life advocates instead point couples to life-affirming alternatives.
One such option is found within the field of restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), which seeks to identify and treat underlying reasons for infertility.
While opposing forms of reproductive technology that commodify and harm individuals, pro-life advocates simultaneously fully affirm the inherent value and dignity of all human beings regardless of the circumstances of their conception.
The Ethics of Surrogacy from a Pro-Life Perspective
Ashley Sadler
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(Oregon Right to Life News) — What is gestational surrogacy? Is it ethical? How should pro-life advocates think through this relatively novel phenomenon?
For many pro-life advocates, the basics about abortion and the pro-life message can be easy to understand and express: It’s wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being, abortion does that, and therefore, abortion is wrong and should be opposed. But what about issues that go beyond those fundamentals?
Gestational surrogacy is one such issue, and it’s caused some confusion among pro-life advocates.
Let’s get into the details:
What is Gestational Surrogacy?
HealthLine defines gestational surrogacy as “the process where a person carries a pregnancy for someone else — the ‘intended parents.’” This is accomplished using in vitro fertilization (IVF), whereby sperm and egg are joined in a laboratory to create an embryo. The embryo is then implanted into the uterus of the surrogate (also called a “gestational carrier” or “host”).
According to the CDC, there were 67,826 “embryo transfer cycles” using a gestational surrogate between 2013 and 2022 in the U.S. Findsurrogate.com estimates that there is a 45–55% chance per transfer that the embryo will survive to birth. The global surrogacy market is valued at roughly between $20 and $30 billion.
Who Are Gestational Surrogates?
Gestational surrogates are women who have agreed – usually for commercial reasons but sometimes for “altruistic” (non-economic) reasons – to carry babies who are not their own for the purpose of transferring those children, once born, to the individuals for whom they are intended.
Commercial surrogates are often women experiencing economic insecurity. GuidetoSurrogacy.com estimates that “First-time surrogate mother compensation typically falls between $60,000 and $85,000, while experienced carriers command $80,000 to $120,000 in base pay.”
According to a United Nations report in July, 2026, “Globally, most surrogate mothers come from lower-income backgrounds compared with commissioning parents, and often lack access to effective legal remedies or advocacy mechanisms. Many of them have experienced multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and poverty long before entering surrogacy arrangements, which capitalize on these stark inequalities, leading to further marginalization.”
Gestational surrogates almost always have no genetic relationship or legal right to the child they carried within their bodies for nine months.
McKenna West, a gestational surrogate in the U.S., made headlines this year when she refused to abort the baby she was carrying for a California couple when the unborn baby was diagnosed with a heart abnormality. Stories like West’s raise serious ethical concerns about surrogacy.
Who Uses Surrogates?
There are several categories of people who seek out commercial surrogacy. These include couples experiencing infertility; single people who want biologically-related children; women who do not want to undergo pregnancy; and homosexual couples, especially homosexual men.
So-called “altruistic” surrogacy, in which payment is not a feature, is less common and is more typically seen within families. For example, a man’s sister can carry his baby if he cannot biologically have a child with his wife or same-sex partner.
The Ethics of Surrogacy
Commercial surrogacy, simply put, is the paid rental of a woman’s body to obtain a child. It is fundamentally transactional, treating pregnancy as a commercial function, the woman as a producer, and the baby as a product.
While pro-life advocates acknowledge that a desire for children is in itself good, not all means of bringing children into one’s family are justified. Pro-life thinkers point out that the practice of surrogacy is fundamentally different from adoption and involves serious violations of the dignity of both the child and the surrogate.
The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network highlighted some of the serious ethical concerns in a succinct summary:
“A few of the many issues raised by surrogacy include: the rights of the children produced; the ethical and practical ramifications of the further commodification of women’s bodies; the exploitation of poor and low income women desperate for money; the moral and ethical consequences of transforming a normal biological function of a woman’s body into a commercial transaction.”
A 2021 article published by the European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology held, while offering a tepid defense of so-called “altruistic surrogacy,” that “female exploitation constitutes an incontrovertible issue against commercial surrogacy.”
While much of the objections to surrogacy have to do with making pregnancy and childbirth a paid proposition, The National Catholic Bioethics Center argues that “[a]ll forms of surrogacy are offenses against the rights of children and parents,” adding that “[a]ltruistic surrogacy retains most of the unethical qualities of commercial surrogacy minus the exploitation of poor women and the repugnant feature of profit-making individuals and entities.”
“Surrogacy implies that a child is a right, commodifying both a child and a woman’s womb regardless of the physical, psychological, and moral repercussions for both,” wrote Juliette Hayes for Focus on the Family.
Addressing comparisons with adoption, Hayes explained that, while “adoption is self-sacrificing in nature, providing a home for a child who needs one” and thereby helping “a child already in a difficult situation,” surrogacy by contrast “creates that difficult situation, often with little regard to what is best for the child.”
And the risks to children can be grave.
“Children born through surrogacy typically experience immediate separation from the woman who carried them during pregnancy – a process that can be emotionally and developmentally significant, given the importance of early bonding,” The United Nations pointed out in its July document about surrogacy. “They may face long-term identity struggles, which are intensified if they are conceived through gamete donation.”
The United Nations pointed out that the “power imbalance” between “commissioning parents” and surrogates “can lead to women being pressured to waive the confidentiality of medical procedures, submit to interventions that endanger their health, or terminate pregnancies when commissioning parents demand it.”
In addition, the United Nations noted, background checks are rarely required for the “intended parents,” a gap that “poses additional risks for children, including the risk of sexual exploitation of girls.” In a high-profile example of the dangerous implications of the substantial lack of safety checks, a Pennsylvania man who obtained a baby via surrogacy last year was revealed to be a child sex offender.
In 2023, experts from 75 countries signed the Declaration of Casablanca, stating that surrogacy “violates human dignity and contributes to the commodification of women and children.”
Commercial surrogacy is banned or implicitly prohibited in much of the European Union. Article 3 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that “In the fields of medicine and biology, the following must be respected in particular: […]the prohibition on making the human body and its parts as such a source of financial gain.” The practice is broadly legal in most of the United States, though some states impose limits.
Even outside of addressing the ethics of surrogacy, pro-life advocates reject the use of IVF itself due to its inherent commodification of human life, as well as the related freezing or destruction of embryos and the routine “selective reductions” (abortions) of undesired embryos after they’ve been implanted. In the U.S., it’s estimated that over a million human embryos created through IVF are currently frozen in long-term storage.
What Are the Options for Couples Experiencing Infertility?
Pro-life advocates – including Oregon Right to Life – recognize that couples who cannot naturally conceive children can endure tremendous suffering as a result of their infertility. At the same time, it is important to honor not only the desires of adults, but also the rights and inherent dignity of children, including the unborn.
Thus, instead of advocating for practices like IVF and surrogacy, pro-life advocates instead point couples to life-affirming alternatives.
One such option is found within the field of restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), which seeks to identify and treat underlying reasons for infertility.
While opposing forms of reproductive technology that commodify and harm individuals, pro-life advocates simultaneously fully affirm the inherent value and dignity of all human beings regardless of the circumstances of their conception.
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