Our friends at #StopSurrogacyNow have picked up and republished an article that tackles head-on the common idea that unpaid or “altruistic” surrogacy may be okay. This is an argument we often hear: it’s really the money that corrupts things, if surrogacy is done without the money or with only reimbursement for actual expenses — not for profit — then everything will be fine.

Australian lawyer and scholar Dr. Catherine Lynch, who writes on issues that arise in the context of both surrogacy and adoption, says that such arguments simply cannot withstand scrutiny.

All surrogacy is cruel to human infants because even so-called “altruistic surrogacy” demands the removal of the neonate from her or his gestational mother when every aspect, every cell, every desire of that neonate, is geared toward being on the body of the gestational mother, to suckle and seek comfort and safety.

. . .

The gestational mother is the only person the child knows when they are born. For every single child, their “mother” is acknowledged as the woman who created that baby by taking them from embryo to fully formed infant, throughout nine months of symbiotic gestation, establishing that person’s first relationship with a human adult, the destruction of which damages both mother and child.

Dr. Lynch makes a powerful argument that is well worth your time to read in full.

And if you haven’t yet signed the #StopSurrogacyNow statement, what are you waiting for? Click here!

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Matthew Eppinette, Director of Programs