A same-sex couple in Canada is suing the single mother they chose to carry their baby after she refused to abort their baby over a prenatal cleft lip diagnosis.
The civil suit filed in May reportedly seeks $600,000 in damages and comes just two years after the woman refused the couple’s demands to abort their commissioned child at 22 weeks gestation over a “cleft lip and possible genetic abnormalities.”
Cleft lip treatment, especially when the repair is initiated shortly after birth, boasts a high success rate and rarely proves fatal. When the intended parents learned their child would likely be born with the lip split due to unjoined tissues, however, they tried to compel the surrogate mother to end the baby’s life.
“Considering that medical tests indicate that the fetus has, or is likely to have, a genetic, chromosomal or other abnormality or defect, and in accordance with article 8.5 (a) of our surrogacy agreement … we want to inform you of our wish that the pregnancy be terminated,” the July 2024 abortion demand obtained by National Post read. “Although very difficult, this decision is free and informed.”
The “devastated” surrogate protested the decision. She noted that while she would permit abortion if the baby boy “had no chance of survival after birth,” she disagreed with ending his life over something cosmetic. It was only after specialists determined the unborn infant had a “relatively minor birth defect” that the intended parents backed off their attempt to force a late-term abortion.
The lawsuit does not specifically mention the abortion debacle as the reason for legal action. Instead, the couple claims that the woman they paid to carry their child put the baby’s life at risk by insisting on a home birth and “failing to follow the (parents’) direction regarding decisions affecting the fetus’s medical care.”
“You know I’m a single mom, you know I have a daughter, and you’re basically suing me for my house. It seems very s—ty, it’s just awful,” the Ontario woman told National Post. “I just feel used … They didn’t get the perfect child they wanted and they threw me away.”
Commercial surrogacy, paying a third-party to carry a child, is strictly outlawed in Canada. “Indirect and disguised payments” such as paying a surrogate mother’s bills or tuition is also illegal. The loophole often touted by rent-a-womb agencies in the Great White North and exploited by customers from countries where surrogacy is more expensive or completely banned permits surrogate mothers to be reimbursed for receipted out-of-pocket pregnancy-related expenses.
“Lawyers, ethicists, fertility clinics, psychologists, agencies all profit from the surrogate mothers’ altruism,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation notes. “Because agencies aren’t allowed to ‘match’ surrogates with prospective parents, they charge for consulting, referral and support. Parents spend on average, $60,000 to $100,000 per child and that’s without paying the surrogate mother anything but expenses.”
The same-sex couple and the woman initially hit it off after she chose them over “50 families wanting her services.” The deal was solidified when she agreed to be implanted with one of the men’s embryos created with “a donor egg and each of their sperm.”
The abortion demand halfway through the pregnancy, however, strained the relationship. When the mother gave birth, the men took the baby home and “cut off communication.”
The surrogate allegedly didn’t hear from the couple again until she tried to take them to small claims court to recuperate $10,000 in “outstanding expenses,” “lost income from work during the pregnancy,” and “transportation costs.” The case defaulted to arbitration, per the surrogacy agreement.
In response, the couple filed the lawsuit formally accusing the woman who carried their son of causing “serious emotional distress” that they claim prevented at least one of the men from working for more than a year from the time of the denied abortion in July 2024.
Ostracization and irrevocable mental, physical, and emotional distress, while downplayed by the businesses selling surrogacy, are not uncommon following a surrogate birth. Surrogates who spend months nurturing infants in the womb only to part ways at birth have a “three-fold risk of developing hypertension and pre-eclampsia” and report feeling heightened anxiety. In some cases, they are forced to undergo abortions of unwanted multiples or babies with defects, resulting in even more negative feelings.
More prominently and importantly, kids whose womb-made attachment bonds are severed in early childhood are more likely to suffer stresses that result in trauma, physical ailments, and brain structure alterations.
One ex-surrogate told The Federalist in April 2024 that she would “never encourage another woman” to gestate someone else’s baby.
“I think I have a hard time knowing that, in this day and age, the government is turning a blind eye to what’s really going on, which is trafficking under the guise of giving the gift of life to ‘deserving couple,’” Gloria Ruiz said.
Surrogacy undoubtedly exploits vulnerable women. But it also denies children’s natural rights to life, to a mother and father, and to freedom from commodification. In many countries and cases, surrogacy is the reproduction loophole used by pedophiles and other bad actors to secure access to children.
Even if a surrogate willingly hands a baby over and everything appears legally airtight, that child will still be the product of an arrangement that considered his rights and needs last. The latest complicated case out of Canada proves to be no different.
Nowhere in the surrogacy contract or same-sex couple’s subsequent lawsuit is the child’s wellbeing put first. Even the surrogacy consultant cited in the National Post story, a woman whose company believes “every person has a right to become a parent via third party reproduction,” wondered how the surrogacy dispute would effect the baby boy.
“What I find most difficult in this is they are suing the woman who brought their son to them,” Sally Rhoads-Heinrich, owner of Surrogacy in Canada Online, said. “How is their son going to feel some day if he learns that?”
