(LifeSiteNews) — A recent caller into financial expert Dave Ramsey’s show inadvertently exposed some of the ethical issues around surrogacy.
“The Ramsey Show” is a personal finance show started by Ramsey that now includes a rotating roster of hosts who are mostly Protestants.
The distinction is important because while the hosts will reference Biblical principles and their own Christian beliefs, they can sometimes get moral issues wrong. Despite these obstacles, the listeners of a recent episode may have come away with a better, even if incomplete, understanding of the truth.
A woman called in and asked if she should be a surrogate mother for $65,000 to help her and her husband pay off debt faster. She got the idea from her sister, who has been a surrogate “mother.” The caller’s motivation may have been good — she wanted to pay down debt and make it so her husband could work fewer extra hours for his own health — but her call shows the problems with surrogacy.
First, she was getting paid a significant amount of money to be a surrogate, which turns the pregnancy into a commercial endeavor. Even if she was not explicitly “selling” a child since she was incubating someone else’s child, it still comes awfully closer to the selling of human beings.
Second, the woman has three kids already and is 29 years old. Despite being relatively young, she said she does not plan to have any more children. “No, we’re done,” she told co-host Jade Warshaw.
However, if she went ahead with the surrogacy, she could not change her mind for about a year, since she would have to carry someone else’s child for 40 weeks and then recover (and that’s a short timeline assuming everything goes well). Because she could be debt free within a year or two, it is likely she would change her mind about having more kids once this stressor is removed.
Yet, her body is now being rented out by another man and is unable to carry her own children she creates with her husband. There are a few words that can be used when a man pays a woman to use her body and none of them are positive. Intentional or not, co-host George Kamel correctly described the process as “renting out your body.”
Warshaw, the co-host, also expressed some concerns, although she did not fully condemn the practice. Still, there are some truths in what she said.
She pointed out that the caller, Brittany, would have to explain to her kids how she is pregnant, but the child is not their sibling. Surrogates also have “attachment” to the babies they are growing in their body.
“There’s going to be attachment for you and there’s going to be attachment for your kids because they knew that they grew in mama’s belly and then they’re seeing somebody else grow in mama’s belly,” Warshaw said.
While surrogates may hope to see their pregnancy as a strictly business transaction, the money and contracts cannot override the biological changes women have while being pregnant. That is why there are regularly disputes between surrogates and their customers when health problems or potential special needs arise, or simply when women develop the natural attraction to the baby in their womb. In some cases, the customers pressure, if not require, women to have abortions.
Unfortunately for Ramsey listeners, Warshaw posited that being a surrogate could be a “ministry,” making it akin to visiting the elderly in a nursing home or feeding the homeless.
Thankfully, the call may have saved her from surrogacy after Warshaw urged her and her husband to look for other ways to pay off the debt or to simply slow down to catch their breath.
Women who seek to be surrogates may believe in their hearts they are doing a good service, but the reality is much darker.
Without even going into the issues of how the embryos are made and a host of related moral issues that stem from it, this Dave Ramsey show caller brought to the light how surrogacy can sound moral and beneficial but can cause serious issues in the family.
