The Empathy Trap
In 2026 the global surrogacy industry will grow to over 30 billion dollars. The manufacturing plants and raw materials that make this massive business possible are women's bodies, and the products being bought and sold are human babies.
This hugely profitable industry can only exist if a subset of women offer themselves up for highly invasive, completely unnatural, risky, and life-altering medical procedures resulting in pregnancy and birth, or alternatively “egg-harvesting” - all with little to no legal protection or oversight.
What motivates women to become surrogate mothers? What motivates women to have their eggs extracted for other women to “use”? What and who are the drivers behind the normalization of surrogacy?
We know that money plays a big part, both for the surrogate mothers and to the chain of people who profit from this human trade - the surrogacy agencies, doctors, clinics, hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry - what we might call Big Fertility - but there are other factors at play besides money.
Guest on this episode, founder of Stop Surrogacy Now UK, Lexi Ellingsworth, has been investigating surrogacy and campaigned against surrogacy law reform in the UK for 7 years, where commercial surrogacy is still illegal but "altruistic" surrogacy is getting more and more common.
In her work to raise awareness around the mountains of ethical questions surrounding the practice of surrogacy in the UK and internationally, Lexi works closely with survivors of surrogacy and in this episode we get an inside view of the world of surrogate motherhood and the dangerously murky morality that surrogate mothers navigate on their often harrowing “journeys”.
We talk about how toxic empathy, low self-esteem and needing to prove you are a good person can lead some women to offer up their bodies for use. We talk about so-called reproductive privilege, the idea that “aren't you lucky you can do this without any help, you don't have to go to an IVF clinic, and you really should help other people who don't have the same luck as you”, as well as the use of human rights language such as Wombs Without Borders, “humanitarian surrogacy” and “fertility refugees”. We talk about the dehumanizing and highly manipulative language that is now being used to trivialize the whole biological act of becoming a mother into terms like “extreme babysitting” and “easy-bake oven” and what it means for women everywhere that we are creating a subclass of women who are used or useful for breeding for other people.
EPISODE LINKS
The Critic: Surrogacy Is Not a Human Right by Lexi Ellingsworth
The International Coalition Against Surrogate Motherhood
CONTACT US
Website: subjecttopower.com
Instagram: @subject2power
email us at subjecttopower@gmail.com
Founder of Stop Surrogacy Now UK
Lexi Ellingsworth has spent her career working with non-profit organizations, focusing on issues ranging from access to education to women’s reproductive rights. Her work has always centered on women and children.
In response to the UK Law Commission’s 2019 public consultation on surrogacy law reform, Lexi founded Stop Surrogacy Now UK, a campaign that aims to increase public awareness on the realities of surrogacy, including the exploitation of women and the commodification of children.