Three international experts, interviewed for La Verità (Nov. 24) by journalist Francesco Borgonovo, denounced surrogacy as a form of violence against women and children. From the United Nations to clinical psychology, a unanimous chorus is speaking out against a practice that normalizes the commodification of bodies and selects life according to eugenic criteria. Below is a summary of the three interviews.

What Is Surrogacy?

Surrogacy is a practice whereby a woman carries a child on behalf of others, whether couples or individuals who will become the commissioning parents. As Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, explains, there are two main types of this practice. The first is traditional surrogacy, in which the woman provides her own eggs, which are fertilized by a donor or another person. The second is gestational surrogacy, where the gametes come from someone other than the pregnant woman herself, who simply carries the pregnancy to term.

Alsalem devoted a powerful report to this topic, published last July and discussed at the UN General Assembly in October, in which she described surrogacy as a particularly harmful form of exploitation and abuse of women. The rapporteur reiterated these positions before the European Parliament during the conference “Surrogacy: An Ethical and Political Challenge for Europe.”

Contrary to the dominant narrative that presents this practice as an “act of love,” the vast majority of surrogacy occurs in a commercial context. As Alsalem points out, most of these practices would not exist if the women involved did not receive payment. Altruistic surrogacy represents a very small number of cases, practically negligible, but is exploited by the media and the surrogacy lobby to make a reality that is otherwise very murky more acceptable.

The Shocking Aspects of Surrogacy Contracts

Contracts governing surrogacy reveal dynamics of total control over the woman’s body that go far beyond what most people imagine. Jennifer Lahl, founder of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, has analyzed numerous California contracts. A disturbing picture emerges.

There is no standard contract: Everything depends on the wishes of the commissioning parents, who can impose clauses of all kinds. Provisions regarding the termination of pregnancy are common, establishing that if certain conditions are met, the surrogate must abort. Equally common are clauses regarding the reduction of pregnancy, if the woman is carrying twins or triplets. But the most shocking aspects concern daily control over the pregnant woman’s life. Contracts may dictate the type of diet to follow, such as a mandatory vegan diet during pregnancy. They may prohibit travel or sexual intercourse unless the partner undergoes HIV/AIDS screening. The most extreme case documented by Lahl involves a California surrogate who waived her right to make end-of-life decisions. If she had required mechanical ventilation during her pregnancy, the commissioning parents would have decided when to withdraw life support, based solely on the stage of the pregnancy and their best interests.

As Alsalem points out, the mother surrenders control over her body to the intermediary clinic and the commissioning parents, finding herself in situations that can seriously endanger her life. This creates the same dynamics of exploitation present in the prostitution system, which exploits the economic hardship and marginalization of vulnerable women, in a total lack of protection.

The costs of these transactions are astronomical: hundreds of thousands of dollars, including agency fees, attorneys’ fees, medical costs, medications, and the surrogate’s compensation.

The Eugenic Drift of Surrogacy

One of the most disturbing aspects of surrogacy is its inevitable drift toward eugenic practices. In the United States, sex-selective abortion, sex-selective in vitro fertilization, and the creation of genetically selected embryos are permitted. If a couple wants a boy or a girl, they’ll pay more because a test is required to determine the sex. If they want to be sure the baby is healthy, that also entails an additional cost, because the embryos are tested for Down syndrome or other unwanted genetic defects .

“Selective reduction” represents the pinnacle of this eugenic logic. Ultrasound is used to identify which of the babies in the mother’s womb should be eliminated, and potassium chloride is injected into the fetus’s heart, causing cardiac arrest. The baby is then gradually expelled through stillbirth or miscarriage.

As Jennifer Lahl denounces, eugenics is exactly this: deciding who lives and who dies, selecting the type of people we want in society. And all this happens in the lab, before the embryos are implanted. If they don’t want a female, they throw her away. If they don’t want Down syndrome, eliminate that embryo.

The couple is paying for the child they want and for the kind of child they want, not just any newborn. Alsalem emphasizes that this practice normalizes the commodification and commercialization of a woman’s reproductive capacity, but also of the children themselves. It means normalizing the purchase of children, and this must be stopped.

There are no background checks on the commissioning parents. The fetus can be aborted at any time if the parents so desire. This is legitimizing a selection of human life based on market criteria and personal preferences.

Permanent Psychological Damage to Children and Surrogate Mothers

The psychological consequences of surrogacy are devastating and lifelong, both for the children born through this practice and for the women who provide their wombs. Anne Schaub-Thomas, a psychologist specializing in the analysis of prenatal memories and early life traumas, has documented these effects with clinical precision.

Traumas for Children

The most obvious consequence is the organization of a separation at birth, even before conception. While adoption is an accidental situation, in surrogacy the separation is deliberately planned, causing a very deep and lasting wound of abandonment that manifests throughout life. There’s also an identity scar: A child separated from his biological mother and unaware of his origins will likely engage in a lifelong search for identity that can become obsessive. As Schaub-Thomas explains, a child builds himself like the roots of a tree: they’re invisible, but they’re what give him strength and stability.

Pregnancy is the first stage in every human being’s life, providing the first stability and the first place of safety. If this part of existence is erased, there are inevitable consequences. A newborn’s vital need, what gives him vitality and meaning to his existence, is to feel loved and connected to his mother from the womb. When a surrogate mother is programmed not to become attached, a vulnerability is created even before birth. The consequences can take different forms: from abandonment wounds to actual psychiatric fractures, depending on the personality and vulnerability of each human being.

The Consequences for Surrogate Mothers

Even for women who lend their wombs, the consequences go far beyond what is stipulated in the contract. Although they are presented as consenting, most are vulnerable women who do so for financial reasons, unaware of the long-term consequences.

Expecting a child is something profoundly human. Asking a woman not to become attached to the child she’s carrying is unnatural. And nature easily tends to contradict this imposition: Many women find themselves attached to their child anyway, only to then hand him over in tears.

The most significant scientific discovery in this field dates back to a 2010 study conducted in Rome, which highlighted how every woman continues to carry fetal cells in her blood marrow for up to 30 years after each pregnancy. This means that the surrogate mother who delivered the child believing it was all over actually retains the biological memory of that child, which may resurface strongly years later.

It would be important to study the incidence of postpartum depression in surrogate mothers, which is likely more common than among women who carry their own children. As Schaub-Thomas concludes, the surrogate mother is also a victim of surrogacy.

Italy as a Model of Contrasts

Reem Alsalem recognizes that Italy is one of the strongest voices in favor of abolishing surrogacy, having taken concrete and positive steps to eradicate the practice and eliminate its demand. It is crucial that Italy draw attention to this issue, encouraging other governments to reflect on the harmful consequences of the practice. The UN rapporteur emphasizes how strange it is that something like surrogacy, which has such a large and damaging impact and transcends borders, is not discussed with the same energy as other transnational issues such as terrorism, drug trafficking, or human trafficking.

There is a strong reticence to discuss surrogacy, and this has allowed the abuses to continue: each country goes it alone, there is no intergovernmental dialogue nor any effort to harmonize policies or protect victims.

With the leadership of countries like Italy, which have taken clear decisions to protect women and children from this exploitation and abuse, we can hope for positive progress towards the abolition of a practice that normalizes the commodification of bodies and the eugenic selection of human life.