Of course, like a true milquetoast, he picked the feminist angle along with the “bad for the baby” angle. Sure, the “victim” is the one who’s getting paid and willingly entered into this evil deal. Right.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely believe woman agreeing to surrogacy will probably change their minds and regret it. I think the biology at play in pregnancy and birth makes bonding with the baby inevitable, so unless you’re surrogating for an infertile relative and can stick around in the kid’s life, it must be a gut punch. For that matter, if a woman says “I regret this, I want to be his mother,” and means it, I think it’s a forgivable error. Better to let her try than give him to the gay guys.

But.

That doesn’t make her the primary victim. It doesn’t make her the victim at all. It makes her, at best, a fool her saw the error of her ways, and at worst a willing accessory to the selling of a baby who is now feeling like she didn’t get enough money for her role.

The only true victim is the baby being ripped away from his mother and thrown into a home that is disproportionately likely to abuse him, and provides bad role models even if they have no nefarious intentions and try to do everything well.