Children are deemed precious, but surrogate mothers expendable

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 30, 2015

”They only care about the babies. They don’t care about the mothers.” You’ve heard that slander applied to pro-life activists, haven’t you? But here’s a case in which it seems to be true.

A rescue team from Israel rushed to Nepal after the earthquake that killed more than 4,500 people there. The plane returned carrying 15 babies, who were born to Nepalese women serving as surrogates for Israeli parents. Time, in its coverage of the story, notes: “None of the surrogate mothers were allowed to travel.”

The babies, you see, were destined to enrich the lives of wealthy same-sex couples. The mothers were poor women, desperate enough to bear someone else’s child in return for cash payment. The children will become privileged citizens of an industrialized society. The mothers will remain statistics.

This story focuses on Israel, but the same attitudes are evident in any affluent nation where couples can afford to engage the services of surrogates in the Third World. The children are expensive consumer items, meeting an urgent desire for people who can afford to have their way. The surrogate mothers are expendable, easily replaced in the sort of “throwaway culture” that Pope Francis decries.