Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
Lois McLatchie Miller is able to conclude that surrogate motherhood is unethical because she looks at only one side of the moral ledger (“The Case for Banning Surrogate Motherhood,” November 20). Of course some abuses occur in surrogacy arrangements, just as some abuses occur in all human arrangements. Some people get ripped off buying cars; some employees steal from their employers; some wives are battered by their husbands; some children are abused by their parents. No human arrangement is free of instances of abuse. Ms. Miller tells us nothing about the frequency or severity of the abuses that she pins on surrogacy. The only factual detail she shares is of a projection that “the global surrogacy market will exceed $129 billion by 2034.” So what? By 2034 the amount of money Americans alone will spend on fertility treatments will be in that same ballpark. No relevant meaning is conveyed by such information about total spending on surrogacy.
Additionally, Ms. Miller is blind to surrogacy’s upsides. Why disregard the joy experienced by infertile couples who surrogacy enables to fulfill their dream of having children? Why ignore the happiness of many people who, through surrogacy, gain siblings they otherwise would never know? Why look past the ability of women for whom pregnancy is especially risky to protect their health by using surrogate mothers? Why discount the ability of other women to improve their lives by serving as surrogate mothers? And why overlook the very existence of those children who are given life only because of surrogacy?
Surrogacy arrangements are voluntary. As such, in a free society these should not be outlawed unless a compelling moral case is made against them or strong and unambiguous evidence shows them to unleash net harm. Ms. Miller’s case against surrogacy doesn’t begin to meet this standard.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
