Inconvenient Truths About Commercial Surrogacy
By Kathleen Sloan and Jennifer Lahl | TwinCities Pioneer Press | March 31, 2014
The surrogacy industry, however, is like a hydra that refuses to respect legislative precedent. As soon as a surrogacy bill is defeated, another one immediately appears to take its place. In action more characteristic of a dictatorship than a democracy, the proponents of contract pregnancy insist on enforcing their will no matter how many times their discredited proposal is rejected.
Framed by Minnesota’s efforts in 2014 to regulate commercial surrogacy, this article reflects the views of the authors on the practice – most importantly, on its commodification of women’s bodies and the health, legal, and social risks to gestational mothers.
The authors are co-founders of a campaign called Stop Surrogacy Now. The initiative’s website claims to bring together a “worldwide, ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse group opposed to the exploitation of women and the human trafficking of children through surrogacy.”