My Body, Your Purchase

On surrogacy

When my father died in 2023, we were tasked with arranging his funeral. The funeral director sat us down with a cup of tea and leaflets. She gave us her condolences before getting down to business: did we want a different color hearse? that would be 500 euros extra—what kind of casket would we like? There were many different types of wood, and we’d need flowers, of course.

The funeral ended up being at home; there was enough space for the casket, it felt like the right thing to do. My father’s body spent a few nights in the mortuary, which cost extra. It was summer and heat is the enemy of decay. Guests brought food, we got drinks and it ended up being the most wonderful and personal reception one can imagine; it also saved us thousands of euros.

Throw my body in a moat when I die—light it on fire, anything but spending thousands of euros on a corpse. No one should have to deal with finances and planning when in mourning.

MUCH as the funeral industry preys on grief, the fertility business preys on the desperate. Two industries which shouldn’t be industries in the first place, two of the most natural parts of life’s cycle: Birth and Death, are being exploited for profit. In this essay I’d like to deconstruct the rhetoric around surrogacy, using the Kardashians and new mother, Lily Collins as examples.

I need to make one thing clear before we dive in: the rich and famous are not your friends, they are not on your side. Celebrities live in a bubble where things are good, where they only speak about social issues when it benefits them; raising funds for the California fires while children in Gaza have been burned alive for days on end.

Many celebrities proudly call themselves feminists, cry out about Roe v. Wade being overturned, yet announce their babies born via surrogacy months later. The elite see working, middle and lower class as produce. Bodies to be used for their own gain, for cheap labor, support, and now a vessel to keep their babies in.

MY first real introduction to surrogacy was when Kim Kardashian had her third child this way, citing health issues as a reason. I was young and didn’t think much of it, I’d even say I thought that I understood—there wasn’t much discourse around the topic back in the day, either. Her fourth child was also born through surrogacy. Her sister, Khloe Kardashian soon followed, welcoming her second child via surrogate. She even posted pictures of herself in a hospital bed with the baby. The mother who gave birth¹, nowhere to be found. Unlike Kim, Khloe never publicly stated her reasons for surrogacy. Many have speculated that she chose this route because of her struggles with body dysmorphia. However, we will never know the truth unless Khloe decides to come out and tell the whole tale².

IG: Khloe Kardashian and her baby, born via surrogate.

Some may argue that Kim’s surrogacy was more medically justified than Khloe’s. She, after all, has a serious illness that would bring both her and the baby in danger³. However, this argument suggests that having a baby is a right, and that if Kim herself can’t have a baby, she’s allowed to use somebody else as a vessel.

THIS rhetoric is easily weaponized. If having a child is an unquestionable right, a rapist could demand custody; an abusive parent would have a solid argument to fight for control. The only thing I consider a right concerning children, is for a child to be safe, to be cared for with love. Sadly, this right isn’t always held up.

If a baby is a right, we could still argue that Khloe’s reasons for surrogacy are selfish. We don’t know her health conditions, as far as the public is aware there are none; they assume that she chose surrogacy because pregnancy is not a simple, comfortable path. Thus, her right to a baby means carrying it herself. Maybe this is why the internet has been more harsh on Khloe than on other celebrities who go the surrogacy route (and the fact that the internet loves taking jabs at the Kardashians).

SINCE Khloe’s surrogacy, many more wealthy couples have come out and shared their stories. Lily Collins recently welcomed her first child via surrogate, and the internet is in uproar.

Collins has been open about her struggles with an eating disorder; it’s an illness that risks permanent infertility⁴. Both Khloe and Collins have not stated their reasons for surrogacy, but Collins’ husband recently released a statement, which suggests health could have been a reason for her decision⁵ .

Opponents of Collins state reasons like the ones mentioned in this essay. The ones supporting her use rhetoric such as “the right of having a baby” and “not knowing someone’s health conditions.” However, I’d argue that health reasons are no excuse to use a woman’s body for your own gain. Having the right to something is no grey phrase—it has been used to invade countries, and now people are using it to see certain bodies as incubators. After all, it is their right.

Surrogacy is only affordable for the wealthy—they won’t be the ones carrying the babies. They don’t need the money, working-class women do. Like the “right of a nation to expand,” the surrogate industry use the “right of having a child” to exploit the female body.

The feminist movement has long emphasized the right to make choices about one’s own body. Surrogacy creates a contradiction: it commercializes, turns the female body into a mere product. It’s not “my body, my choice” but ”my body, your purchase.”

WOMEN willing to become surrogates are not liberated. Surrogacy is not letting someone carry your baby—it is treating women as vessels to be used and discarded. Once the contract ends, so does her worth. Women are made to believe that they have made a choice, while in reality, the industry preys on working-class women. Selling them the idea of easy money like selling candy.

Women who choose surrogacy for health reasons are well aware of the dangers of pregnancy, yet they opt to place their child in the body of another without a second thought. Even if the surrogate-mother knows of the health risks, which include death, a check of fifty-thousand dollars weighs heavily when deciding whether to go through with it.

AN “egg farm” was recently uncovered in Eastern Europe—women trafficked, pumped with hormones, their eggs sold like a commodity. This is the future we are walking toward when we treat reproduction as an industry.

All of this to say, I don’t agree with Lily Collin’s choice to have her baby through surrogacy, no matter what reasons she may have had. But she is not the root of the problem. Like many industries, surrogacy thrives on desperation and inequality. Framed as an act of necessity, it reinforces the idea of human bodies as objects. If we truly value motherhood, we should ensure that it is never something bought or sold.

This article was partially inspired by a Substack article about the fertility industry. I could go on about the exploitativeness of freezing eggs, but this article sums it up in better ways than I could:

Why I'm Not Freezing My Eggs

Lily Collins and her husband, Charlie McDowell (2025)

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1. I call surrogate mothers mothers because they fed, cared for, and ultimately gave birth to the child in their womb. It is the simplest definition of what makes someone a mother. Another note: I understand that she may not want to be photographed for privacy reasons, I am simply noting that Khloe Kardashian wanted the world to see her as someone who had given birth. If this was just about the birth of her baby, she could have posted a photo of the child, not of her and the child in a hospital bed, which is a connotation for labor, effort, birth.

2. Again, I don’t know what Khloe Kardashian’s reason for surrogacy is, but since she hasn’t explicitly mentioned any health reasons, I’m going to use her as an example of surrogacy for aesthetic or convenience purposes. If Kardashian were to come out and explain her situation, which I don’t think she owes anyone, I would gladly retract my statement.

3. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/kim-kardashain-miscarriage-north-pregnancy-preeclampsia-childbirth-surrogacy-a9332076.html

4. Stewart, D E et al. “Infertility and eating disorders.” American journal of obstetrics and gynecology vol. 163,4 Pt 1 (1990): 1196-9. doi:10.1016/0002-9378(90)90688-4

5. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/lily-collins-husband-charlie-mcdowell-speaks-unkind-messages/story?id=118415614