Priyanka and Nick’s outsourcing childbirth controversy spotlights surrogacy stigma!

Last week, Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas shocked their fans by announcing that they’d had a baby through surrogacy. All it took for detractors to accuse the 39-year-old Indian actress of “outsourcing” childbirth was this.

While others questioned her parenthood, claiming that “Nick has become a father but Priyanka is not a mother,” others viewed the situation via a socioeconomic lens. Some activists took to social media to protest what they perceived as an exploitative system that existed “because there are poor women” around the world.

Thousands of dollars have been given to women in rural China, Cambodia, Thailand, and India to carry the infants of couples they have never met. Surrogacy provides these women and their families with a means to earn more than five times their normal annual pay. However, it is a business that is seen to be hazardous to the surrogate mother’s health. It’s also becoming more criminalized, with some people receiving prison sentences as a result.

“Rich people always want the existence of poverty in society for their own interests. I won’t accept surrogacy until rich women become surrogate mums,” said activist Taslima Nasreen.

When women are forced to sell or rent out their vagina and uterus for being invaded, it is because of poverty, or for being financially dependent on others, it is of course NOT a 'choice'. If it was a 'choice',rich & independent women would have this 'choice', but they don't. https://t.co/X7N61h9aGV

— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) January 24, 2022

Surrogacy, on the other hand, is defended as the “final way to have children” in some circles. Surrogacy abroad is the sole opportunity for many LGBT persons in mainland China to become parents: “The existing adoption law is heterocentric and unfavorable to gay people.” In general, gay adults are unable to adopt children domestically.”