I admit that I haven’t read the book, Full Surrogacy Now. I don’t think I have it in me but perhaps one day I will. I have read a New Yorker article that touches on the key points, likely leaving out any nuance.
She wants to legitimate surrogacy in order to legitimate a more communal way of raising children. One could say that she’s ready to “cancel” the family unit. “Unabashedly interested in family abolition, I want us to look to waged gestational assistance specifically insofar as it illuminates the possibilities of its imminent destruction by something completely different,” she writes. Gestational surrogacy makes it more difficult to name the “biological mother” with complete certainty, and this sort of murkiness strikes Lewis as the best possible world in which to raise children. The “polymaternal” ideal, Lewis argues, already exists for rich children, whose parents are able to purchase “full surrogacy” by hiring “wet nurses, nannies, ayahs, and mammies.” Lewis thinks that such a childhood should be available to all.
From “Can Surrogacy Remake The World” New Yorker Article
The apparent lack of focus on the kids in all of this pains me. Tell me why this is a better way of raising children? Where does the perspective of the children in all of this come into play? The book itself seems dead set on championing the surrogate, which I agree is needed, but it comes at the cost and reality of the children in my opinion. Again and again, the perspective of the entirety of the point of surrogacy is left out. Why? Why can’t we talk about the complexities? Why must we jump to an extreme? There’s so much in the middle ground to explore and to find the nuance in. For example, I met a gestational surrogate who had two of her surrogate kids come stay with her for a few weeks. They felt drawn and connected to her — their parents consented. Let’s talk about that and why it’s needed rather than blindly following one side or the other.
Recently, I “came out” as being born through traditional surrogacy and before I could say much else, the person sitting across from me said, “Aww that’s lovely”. On one very narrow dimension, it is. My birth and existence feels forbidden and miraculous all at once. Lovely is not the word I would use to describe being born this way and navigating the world of being a traditional surrogate baby. Complex, confusing, heart wrenching, awe-inspiring come to mind much sooner.
Surrogacy Stories 