For decades, the idea and practice of surrogacy has been touted as beautiful.

A couple, unable to have children of their own, achieve their dreams of having a family through the help of a surrogate– a woman who carries a pregnancy to term on their behalf.

This practice has even been praised as being “pro-family.” After all, isn’t “making more babies” important?

As with any other practice, it is paramount that the Christian examines surrogacy from the moral lens of Scripture.

For the sake of time, I want to quickly examine three moral issues that surround the practice of surrogacy: surrogacy exploits women, surrogacy commodifies children, and surrogacy misuses God’s design for the family.

First, the practice of surrogacy exploits women.

Surrogacy, at its basic foundation, is womb-renting. Surrogacy views reproduction as a transactional function– able to be bought and sold at the right price. Because of this, women who engage in this practice are viewed as mere biological machines.

In her report to the United Nations General Assembly, Reem Alsalem noted,

“Surrogacy reduces women and children including girls to mere commodities, stripping them of their equality and dignity and encouraging their exploitation and abuse…

Surrogacy is the result of commodification and commercialization of women’s reproductive capacities, and it preys on and exploits women, particularly those from marginalized and impoverished backgrounds…”

Scripture reveals that God created humankind in His image (Genesis 1:27). Any practice that belittles, dehumanizes, or commodifies God’s design for His image bearers must be rejected by Christians.

Second, the practice of surrogacy commodifies children.

Instead of children being views as human beings with human rights from the moment of conception, they are viewed as commodities to be bought and sold.

In her report to the United Nation Human Rights Council, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio warned,

“There is no right to have a child under international law…

Children are not goods or services that the State can guarantee or provide. They are human beings with rights.

Surrogacy is a growing industry driven by international demand, making it an area of concern for children’s rights and protection. Commercial surrogacy, as currently practiced in some countries, usually amounts to the sale of children.”

Children are not commodities, and having a child is not a “right.”

Children are blessings to be received and gifts from God to be cherished and protected (Ps. 127:3-5). Any practice that commodifies children or views them as an absolute “right” of adults must be rejected by Christians.

Finally (and most importantly), surrogacy misuses and abuses God’s design for the family.

Increasingly, surrogate mothers are being used by homosexual couples who are (for obvious reasons) unable to have children of their own.

Dr. Albert Mohler notes this well in his podcast, The Briefing.

“The baby, as a human being made in the image of God is an unalloyed good. The baby is not the problem. It is the process. It is the surrogacy. It is the relationship. It is the fact that this is taking place in so many cases, not only outside of marriage, but outside of an entire heterosexual formula.”

As Dr. Mohler notes, the process of surrogacy removes children from the marriage relationship entirely (whether it’s a heterosexual relationship or not).

God designed children as gifts to be received by a man and woman in a covenantal relationship with one another. The renting of another woman’s womb to carry a baby on a couple’s behalf damages this design.

In the case of homosexual couples, the act of surrogacy intentionally jobs a child from their biological mother.

Them Before Us, an organization designed to fight for the rights of children, notes that children have the fundamental, natural right to be raised and loved by their biological parents.

A little over seven months ago, I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl. When my husband and I left the hospital, we did not leave with a baby.

We left with our baby.

This reality is the key reason why surrogacy is so evil and devastatingly harmful for children.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, my body did not just sustain her. It bonded with her. Research shows the immense bonding that happens throughout the pregnancy stage of development.

My daughter learned the sounds of my voice, the rhythm of my heartbeat. She directly benefited from the food I ate, the exercise routine I maintained.

When she was born and was immediately laid on my chest, the familiar sounds of my heart and breathing calmed her.

Surrogacy eradicates this beautiful biological reality.

The woman the baby bonds with inside the womb is ripped away as soon as he is born– given to another woman he does not know (though he is given to his biological mom) and is forced to start the bonding process all over again.

An Ethics and Medics article notes,

“For the child, might there be a risk of emotional pain due to separation from the carrier at birth, given the child’s reciprocal attachment to her? Adopted children have described this as a bond that the child senses in his very being…

Given what is known about the physiological communication between mother and child during pregnancy, however, coupled with recognition of human creation imago Dei, this is surely a legitimate area of phenomenological inquiry.

Concerns about the attachment of surrogate mothers to children gestated on behalf of other mothers are valid, and are evidenced at least anecdotally by numerous cases in which a surrogate mother has fought to keep the child or has suffered psychological trauma, depression, and anxiety after giving up the child.”

Surrogacy directly interrupts, abuses, misuses the design that God made for families.

Babies were never meant to be ripped away from their biological mothers to be “mothered” by a homosexual couple. Babies were never meant to be “rented out” to another woman to bond with and then be ripped away from.

God’s design for the family is good– it protects and loves children. Children are not commodities; they are human beings with emotions, needs, and are worthy of basic human rights.

Having a child is not a “right” that adults can claim no matter the circumstance or damage to the child.

Children are gifts from God and they deserve to be loved and protected.