The news outlet Wired posted an article on Wednesday, Sept. 3, titled “The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It?”, detailing the relationship between Cindy Bi, a venture capitalist based in California, and her surrogate, who she is suing. Why? Because Bi’s surrogate gave birth to a stillborn baby, and Bi thinks she did it intentionally. Bi even told Emi Nietfeld, the journalist behind the article, “I hope she goes to jail.”
There are several factors that can result in a stillborn baby, and things like genetic abnormalities and placental problems may result in a stillbirth. However, up to 50% of the time, the cause of a stillbirth is completely unknown, according to Mount Sinai. In the case of Bi’s surrogate, who chose to use the pseudonym Rebecca Smith, the stillbirth resulted from the placenta separating from Smith’s uterine wall, depriving the baby of oxygen.
Nietfeld was as objective as any journalist can possibly be in a situation like this, interviewing both Bi and Smith, who was distraught at the death of the baby. Even so, there are facets of the story Bi told that just do not add up. If the stillbirth was a result of placental disruption, something that is completely dictated by the genetics of the fetus, why did Bi almost immediately place the blame for her baby’s death on Smith? Why did she request Smith’s private medical information? Why did she thereafter hire psychics who convinced her that Smith had somehow turned against her baby? Why is she even pursuing litigation against her?
That is the issue with surrogacy and the fertility industry as a whole. When people like Bi treat surrogacy as a business transaction and babies like commodities, they forget that there is an actual person growing the baby inside her body. The result is a power imbalance so extreme that it proves detrimental to the body and mind of the surrogate. Surrogacy and the fertility industry commodify women’s bodies to the point of dehumanization and there is no point in pretending that the industry is ethical anymore.
Despite the problems with the fertility industry, many still believe in its practices. According to a study conducted by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, 61% of married same-sex couples under the age of 50 surveyed viewed “biological pathways to parenthood, such as insemination, surrogacy, and in vitro fertilization, as ideal compared to non-biological options like adoption.” Kim Kardashian has used surrogacy to have her two most recent children because she experienced placenta accreta in her own pregnancies. If surrogacy is an ideal pathway for same-sex couples to start their own families and for women experiencing unhealthy pregnancies to have biological children, how could it possibly be unethical?
But there is a hidden side to surrogacy. The fertility industry is worth billions of dollars and women who work for surrogacy industries are often increasingly desperate for money, selling off their bodies for nine months, while those who hire them tend to be wealthy. What it culminates in is an unbalanced power dynamic, with those who hire surrogates able to hold anything and everything over the women they hire knowing they are desperate for money.
Surrogacy can result in infertility or even death for surrogates, and those who hire them do not care as long as they receive a perfect baby. In fact, at the same time as Bi hired Smith to carry her son, she hired another surrogate to carry a daughter. This pregnancy was extremely unhealthy and resulted in an emergency hysterectomy. When asked how her second experience with surrogacy turned out, however, Bi described it as “perfect”. But it was only perfect because in the end, her daughter did not die. There is a complete disregard for the health and safety of the women who must go through the emotional and physical labor to bring the child into the world. In that sense, surrogates are essentially walking, talking incubators.
Additionally, the lines between commercial gestation and human trafficking are extremely blurred. Any other sale of children is regarded as human trafficking, but for whatever reason, paying a woman to carry a baby and then hand it over is not perceived as trafficking.
When did the lines blur and change? When did we start regarding women as potential carriers instead of actual human beings? The fertility industry in the United States either needs a serious overhaul or needs to be banned altogether. Countries like France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Bulgaria have all banned surrogacy, mostly to prevent exploitation and protect dignity. Because of the legal action that Bi is taking against Smith, Smith is forced to shoulder both the legal fees and her medical bills, all while dealing with the emotional turmoil that comes with going through a stillbirth. The United States needs to take action to ban surrogacy or at least give surrogates further protections to prevent a situation like Smith’s from occurring again.