Considering how quickly “too posh to push” once took off as a way of rebuking mothers who planned to cheat nature with a C-section, current reporting about affluent women who, for reasons seemingly unconnected to fertility, outsource entire pregnancies to poorer women is distinguished by a touching delicacy.
So much so that a whole new vocabulary – “welcomed”, “surrogacy journey”, “gestational carrier” – is now helping normalise these womb-saving conveniences. You would hardly know from the tributes to celebrity hirers of surrogates, customarily accompanied by zero interest in the labouring women’s journeys, that commercial surrogacy is banned in most of the world, and only occurs within the UK in its expenses-only form. And some will certainly take it as a sign of progress that, even as studies expose the long-term health problems associated with childbirth, no reason now seems too trivial to justify paying a less fortunate woman to risk these complications.
