Devaluing children

In a world where celebrities and gay men hire women to carry their babies, and grandmothers give birth to their own grandchildren, some people view surrogacy as fraught with moral consequences. Grace Kao, an ethics professor at the Claremont School of Theology, waves away such concerns in My Body, Their Baby: A Progressive Christian Vision for Surrogacy (Stanford University Press 2023). Kao is a self-identified feminist Christian, and in the book she describes her experience of carrying a child at the age of 41 for an infertile couple. Kao had no genetic relation to the baby and asked for no payment.

The book details how surrogacy works, and Kao remains even-handed in acknowledging common concerns. She shows compassion for her friends and views her journey as rewarding, but doesn’t acknowledge the damage that “reproductive hospitality” can have on society. Surrogacy helps separate sex and procreation, allowing society to reinvent marriage as an institution for self-fulfillment rather than faithfulness.

Kao compares surrogacy to donating a kidney, promoting a view of children as things that can be grown and given away. At least four times in the book, she remarks that the mother is “the real patient” in any pregnancy. And she says once the “intended parents” take over, “the kids are fine.” This vision for surrogacy suggests that anyone can be a mother as long as she (or he!) feels like one. Abortion advocates offer similar lines of reasoning. Kao assures readers that the majority of surrogate women experience no remorse about giving up the baby, while many typical mothers don’t bond with their babies.

The book reads like a medical journal, but it provides insight for Christians into an increasingly common worldview. Kao, a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), says her denomination pays for its employees to have surrogates. Meanwhile, feminists like Gloria Steinem argue against paid surrogacy, saying it turns women’s ­bodies—especially poor women’s bodies—into commodities.

Conservative churches are holding the line on traditional marriage. But are they communicating that the sexual union therein is not only God’s intimate gift, but also the means of fulfilling His command to fill the earth?