There has been a steady stream of surrogacy stories in recent months that can be best described as extremely weird. Upsetting at times, yes, but more than anything, just strange—residing in an uncanny valley between science fiction and bureaucratic realism.
This month, a legal fight erupted around McKenna West, an Alaska surrogate who refused to get an abortion when the child she carried was discovered to have a serious but treatable birth defect. Ms. West traveled to Texas, seeking medical care for the baby in a state where abortion is illegal. She has sued for custody of the baby, and the intended parents have sued her for breach of contract. It’s unlikely that Ms. West will ultimately be held responsible for damages related to her refusal to get an abortion. That outcome is “theoretically possible,” says Kimberly D. Krawiec, a University of Virginia law professor, “but has never happened, and would face legal hurdles.”
Then there’s Kyla Simpson, a Florida surrogate who gave birth to triplets in 2024 intended for a single Chinese man. When the children’s father didn’t come to pick them up—he says he had visa troubles—she became concerned that the children were going to be trafficked. That wasn’t the case. The father had simply gotten bad legal advice and was being scammed out of his life savings. Unscrupulous actors had claimed they could bring his children to China.
Still, international surrogacy does sometimes lead to situations best described as child neglect. Infants awaiting their intended parents often spend extended periods in “nanny houses” where underpaid women care for them in crowded, spartan conditions. One Chinese billionaire was discovered in 2025 to have fathered more than 100 babies via American surrogates.
MaryBeth Lewis is facing felony charges after she forged her husband’s signature on legal documents necessary to gain legal parenthood over two babies she hired a surrogate to carry. The babies came from donor sperm and egg, and are thus unrelated to Ms. Lewis or her husband. Making the story stranger, the children would be Ms. Lewis’ 14th and 15th children, 10 biological, three more from donor eggs and sperm though carried by Lewis herself, who gave birth to her final child at 62. As of 2025, Ms. Lewis is fighting for custody of the babies, now toddlers.
There are also the women who effectively became accidental surrogates, after they sought to have children through IVF, and realized after birth that another couple’s embryo had been used. Of course, these cases are extremely rare, though likely more common than reported, since the mix-up is usually only discovered because the child is obviosuly not the same race as his parents. Add in the growing number of companies that claim their genetic tests can predict an embryo’s intelligence and height with the aim of helping customers, as one company put it, “have your best baby,” and it starts to feel like reproductive technology has advanced faster than our ability to grapple with the ethical—and legal—consequences. These stories sound less like something from real life than problems for discussion in a freshman philosophy seminar. But they’re absolutely real, and we’re no closer than undergraduates to solving them.
Surrogacy poses tricky questions. Is a child’s mother the woman who gives birth to him, or the one who gave half her DNA to make him? Or is it a third party, like Ms. Lewis, who pays one woman for her eggs and one woman for her womb? Are parents stewards or architects of their children’s lives? Should they accept the children God gives them? Or can they try to write their own family stories by selecting the best of the batch?
Reproductive medicine now resembles science fiction—parents picking an embryo based on an IQ prediction or ordering a baby from abroad like a pair of custom sneakers. That we can make these decisions doesn’t mean we should. As suspicion toward surrogacy on pro-life or national security grounds grows, states might attempt to curb the practice. Florida has already limited the ability of some foreigners to hire American surrogates. No amount of sensible regulation can fully fix the conflict at the heart of surrogacy. After all, how do you ethically buy a baby?
Ms. Camp is senior newsletter editor at Free Expression.
I can't believe we've got to a point where all these loopholes haven't been closed yet. The failure modes are obvious after about five minutes thought.
I am actually in favour of surrogacy being legal, because I offered my best friend my nice helpful uterus after she got ovarian cancer in the event that she needed one (she didn't, hooray!) However the amount of faff created by people not legislating it properly is so stupid. Why on earth would you allow it to be international? Beyond the exploitation possibilities, it just makes everything so much more complicated.
There is so much about surrogacy that is troubling. I have so much compassion for people who want to have children and can’t in the usual way, but the potential for exploitation, particularly in commercial surrogacy, is so high.