A surrogacy lesson from an unlikely source that needs to be heeded.
A surrogacy lesson from an unlikely source that needs to be heeded.
A same-sex couple in Canada is currently suing the surrogate who made their son possible.
The woman refused an abortion when a cleft lip was discovered on the unborn child she was carrying.
The lawsuit could have been prevented had a clip from Keeping Up With the Kardashians been mandatory viewing before the surrogacy contract was signed.
In the Khloe Kardashian 2021 incident, she and her husband at the time, Tristan, were being interviewed as they considered surrogacy. As they were walked through possible scenarios, Khloe declared: “If we are blessed to have multiples, we think that is God’s will. So, we are on board with that.”
And then came the showstopper: “What if your surrogate is not on board for that?”
Well, she has to be, doesn’t she? The surrogate does what the people desiring the baby want the surrogate to do.
The men in Canada must have made similar assumptions.
“Well, it’s your baby,” it was explained to Khloe and Tristan, “but it is her body. So, she can terminate the pregnancy with any unplanned outcome.”
Her body, her choice. Slogans can get complicated once the placards get put away.
Kardashian confessed she hadn’t thought about this as a possibility — a disagreement where the surrogate has decision-making power.
It’s almost as if God remembered he never took away our free will.
Things do get complicated when we men and women get into the business of playing God. It doesn’t have to be something as intimate and yet bound by legal contracts as surrogacy. We do it all the time in life.
But should we be doing surrogacy in the first place? What about the surrogate? And what about the little person who has no voice in matters of his life and death?
At the time, one pro-life commenter referred to it as the moment when Khloe and Tristan realized “they might be a little pro-life.” (On Instagram, someone had a more colorful reaction: “Damn that’s f***ed up!! Should be apart [sic] of the contract.”)
Khloe had been told a pregnancy would be high-risk. Celebrities and others who can afford it opt for surrogacy for all sorts of other reasons, including the simple practicality of working in an industry that tends to require a certain look that is harder — or impossible — to maintain during and after pregnancy.
Up North, in Ontario Superior Court, the couple suing the woman who made their son possible was unhappy with her for refusing to abort the baby at 22 weeks, when possible birth defects were detected — including the aforementioned cleft lip.
The Canadian drama could be its own reality-tv series. According to media reports, everything went south (pun intended, we are the land of the Kardashians, after all) after the abortion refusal. “More conflict arose,” according to the National Post, “when the mother insisted on keeping to the original plan to have the baby delivered in a private home by midwives, not in a hospital as the parents requested because of the cleft lip. The baby had breathing problems on delivery but soon recovered when the midwives administered oxygen, and called an ambulance to take him to hospital, she says.” She later requested reimbursement and expenses, which has since found its way into small-claims court and arbitration.
“They didn’t get the perfect child they wanted and they threw me away,” the surrogate, described as a single mother and corrections officer, told the Post in an interview. “You know I’m a single mom, you know I have a daughter, and you’re basically suing me for my house. It seems very s**ty, it’s just awful,” she said.
Reportedly, she’s being sued for $600,000 — which includes compensation for emotional distress caused by her not aborting the child.
Yes, we are talking about the same child they are currently raising.
Canada does not have the same commercial market the U.S. does (reports suggest some Kardashian surrogates may have been paid decently). Sally Rhoads-Heinrich, owner of Surrogacy in Canada Online, the agency the litigious couple used, wants that to change.
“The whole world is coming to Canada,” she says, because of bans in place in the like of India and Thailand and because socialized health care takes care of most of her fees.
But money isn’t going to alleviate the problems of surrogacy. Children are not for buying and selling.
And as much as a couple wants genetic material from one or both to make it into the creation of a child, there are children alive in foster care, in need of homes.
And then there is the matter of the women. Surrogacy horrors have made it to the likes of the Times because desperate women are being trafficked and abused to meet demands. But a mother, however well paid or however straightforward the expenses or reimbursements, was never meant to be a mere incubator.
Khloe and Tristan are divorced but co-parenting their two daughters. Kardashian is pondering going another round of surrogacy. She still has “a few embryos in the freezer,” and thinks at least one is a girl — and believes sisters are good.
Meanwhile, there is a boy in Ontario who I’d like to believe can live blissfully unaware of his origin story. The Body Keeps the Score isn’t required reading to know he’s not unscarred.
Supporters of a global ban on surrogacy may bring together an unusually diverse coalition; a recent United Nations report decried the violence, exploitation, and abuse of women and girls in the industry.
Many a person winds up in the web of an industry simply out of a natural desire to love and be loved. How can we do that without adding webs of suffering – and death, when you consider selective reduction, more traditional abortion, and decisions to be made about excess embryos on ice? Surrogacy ought to be eliminated as an option. Its prohibition would be a step toward putting the humane back into humanity.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.