surrogacy

Wesley J. Smith appeared on In the Market with Janet Parshall on August 13, 2026, to discuss the case of Baby Gabriel, a baby recently born via his surrogate after his parents ordered the surrogate to abort. Smith discussed the specifics of the case as well as the ethical issues with surrogacy. “It treats babies as so many products,” Smith explained. Smith also discussed a recent article from a professional journal calling for wildfires to be treated as a public health emergency. Smith explains why labeling everything a “public health crisis” is a danger to individual freedom. “It’s what I call a ‘technocracy,’ rule by experts,” said Smith. Read what Smith has written on these issues here:

An awful story has broken into the headlines illustrating the moral peril of commercial surrogacy. From the Texas Tribune story: [McKenna] West, a nurse, entered a surrogacy agreement in Alaska, where she lives, with the intended parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, through Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists, LLC, a Connecticut-based surrogacy agency. Typically under gestational agreements like the one that West signed with Gilkar and Ahmed, the intended parents, not the surrogate, have the parental rights to make choices relating to the fetus. The fetus West is carrying was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome at 20 weeks of pregnancy, and Gilkar and Ahmed allegedly asked her to undergo an abortion and they have said they will refuse to let the Read More ›

Should men have the right to have their cells manipulated so they can become biological mothers? Should women past child-bearing age have the same right if their own eggs are no longer viable? More to the point, should we all have the right to do whatever it takes to have a baby if that is our desire and also, to obtain the baby we want?

These questions have ceased to be grist for science fiction authors. Researchers recently announced that they have genetically manipulated human skin cells to become eggs, including those of men (the idea being to eventually enable both members of a same sex couple to have a genetic connection with their child). Then, after more genetic tinkering, the eggs were fertilized into embryos via IVF. Finally, the biotechnologists monitored embryonic development until the experiment was stopped, and the embryos destroyed.

No pregnancy has been established with this technique. But that is cold comfort. The researchers plan to keep experimenting and I have little doubt that when they overcome remaining technical difficulties, someone will create a pregnancy using “skin cell” embryos. After all, what beyond self-restraint—currently in little supply in this field—is to stop them?