Surrogacy

During Rosh Hashanah dinner this past week, my mother — an occasional yet focused steamer — recommended I check out the Israeli show A Body That Works on Netflix. And so I did. The series focuses on the marital joy and strife that emerges during a surrogate pregnancy situation between an affluent Tel Aviv couple and a single mother from far more modest circumstances.  Clearly shot before last October 7, I couldn’t help thinking that A Body That Works reflects all that is great about Israel — a place I’ve visited and lived in for decades. There’s Tel Aviv’s balmy seafront location. The series’ hip and hunky cast.

Last July, Albert and Anthony Saniger filed a lawsuit against a high-end California fertility clinic after their dreams of having a second boy were destroyed when their surrogate gave birth to a baby daughter. After already choosing male names and Gmail accounts for their future son, the couple had explicitly made clear that no female embryos were to be transferred into the body of their surrogate, who had experienced two failed cycles of in vitro fertilization before a successful pregnancy in 2020. To add to the trauma of being forced to live with a healthy baby girl instead of a male, the Sanigers were now forced to spend “staggering” amounts of money raising the two boys they wanted and a girl, all bought via costly fertility clinic services.

New York's current surrogacy laws permit a woman to carry a child for another parent, but they don’t allow her to be paid for doing it. And at the time of birth, the law recognizes the gestational carrier as the legal mother. Governor Cuomo seeks to change both of these laws, bringing New York into line with 47 other US states that permit contractual surrogacy arrangements. That would make 48 states with bad laws. Womb rental is akin to nine months of prolonged prostitution, and manufacturing children for sale. New York’s motive for legalizing surrogacy is to avoid insulting the LGBTQIAP+ community. Along with infertile couples, they are the primary beneficiaries of womb rental. So opposition to surrogacy is called homophobic.