Commercial Surrogacy Should Be Abolished Because It Commodifies Children and Enables Infanticide
Source: Jordan Boyd. "We’ve Reached The Infanticide Stage Of Commercial Surrogacy." August 12, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that commercial surrogacy should be banned entirely because it turns babies into products that can be rejected if they don't meet expectations—as shown by a case where parents tried to force an abortion because their unborn son had a treatable heart defect. She says this proves that as long as surrogacy exists as an industry, children's lives will always be vulnerable to being discarded based on contracts rather than valued as human beings from conception.
Conclusion
Commercial surrogacy (the 'rent-a-womb industry') is inherently immoral and should be abolished because it treats children as commodities whose right to life depends on contractual terms rather than their inherent human worth.
Premises
- In the case of Baby Gabriel, his commissioning parents attempted to use a surrogacy contract clause permitting abortion for fetal 'anomalies' to demand a late-term abortion after he was diagnosed with a treatable heart condition (HLHS).
- The surrogate mother had to relocate states and fight legally just to secure medical treatment for the child she was carrying, while the commissioning parents tried to compel her to return, stopped payments, and sought damages.
- This situation required emergency intervention by a state attorney general and a court order to protect the infant's right to life-saving care, revealing that surrogacy arrangements can leave a child's survival contingent on legal technicalities rather than inherent human value.
- Surrogacy arrangements commodify children by treating them as products that can be rejected or 'returned' if they fail to meet specifications outlined in a contract, similar to a consumer transaction.
- Even in cases where surrogacy results in a healthy baby placed with loving parents, the child is still fundamentally the product of an arrangement that subordinated his rights and needs to the wishes of the paying parties.
- Surrogacy exploits vulnerable women by placing them in situations where they must make impossible decisions about pregnancies they are carrying for others under contractual pressure.
- As long as the third-party reproduction industry continues to operate, embryos and unborn children deemed 'unworthy' remain at risk of being terminated at the whim of the commissioning parents.
Assumptions
- Human life has inherent value and rights from the moment of conception, independent of physical condition or parental wishes.
- Contractual agreements regarding reproduction inherently reduce children to the status of commodities or products.
- The existence of one high-profile case involving contractual abortion demands is representative of a systemic risk inherent to all commercial surrogacy arrangements, not an aberration.
- Regulatory reforms (like bans on certain buyers) cannot adequately address the moral problems with surrogacy because the commodification itself, not just specific abuses, is the core issue.
- The rights of the unborn child should take precedence over the reproductive and contractual autonomy of the commissioning parents in surrogacy arrangements.