When many prospective parents decide to take the surrogacy route, they silently make a calculation in their hearts:As long as you spend enough money, choose a legal country, and sign a formal contract, you will definitely be able to have a baby.
This logic holds true when purchasing goods. In the matter of surrogacy, there is a fundamental misjudgment.
At its core, surrogacy is a life process, not a transaction. The survival of the embryo, the response of the uterus, accidents during pregnancy, changes in laws, and the integrity of the institution—any link that is out of control may wipe out years of expectations and hundreds of thousands of investments. The deeper risk is that some choices not only cost you money, but also your personal freedom, and even permanently lose the opportunity for recovery.
This article combs through three types of real cases in the United States, Southeast Asia, and China. The purpose is not to persuade families to quit, but to help willing families establish a true perception of risks.
In 2009, SurroGenesis, a surrogacy agency based in Visalia, California, declared bankruptcy. During the operation of the institution, the large amount of custody funds paid by the entrusting families were diverted to maintain daily operations, instead of being separately deposited in a third-party trust account as agreed.
More than 100 commissioned couples were affected by the bankruptcy, and some families suffered losses exceeding $100,000. Some of these couples are in the midst of the surrogacy process—the surrogate mother is pregnant but cannot pay the medical expenses; others have lost all of their upfront costs and the process has been terminated.
This incident prompted California to introduce stricter regulatory requirements for escrow accounts. However, for the victims at the time, the road to recovery was extremely long, and most people could only partially recover their funds.
This is the most far-reaching case in the history of American surrogacy. In 1986, Mary Beth Whitehead of New Jersey signed a traditional surrogacy agreement with the Sterns, using her own eggs as a surrogate for conception. The agreement stipulated that the child would be handed over to the Sterns after birth.
After his daughter was born, Whitehead refused to fulfill the contract and fled to Florida with the child. The Sterns sued and endured a lengthy trial that received widespread national attention.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the surrogacy contract was invalid (violated public policy), but based on the best interests of the children, custody was awarded to the Sterns and Whitehead was granted visitation rights. The lawsuit lasted for two years, and both parties suffered huge psychological trauma and legal expenses.
The legality of surrogacy in the United States is highly dependent on state legislation, and varies greatly from state to state. Michigan will not complete the revision of surrogacy laws until 2024. Previously, surrogacy contracts were invalid in the state and may face criminal penalties; Louisiana maintains a strict restrictive stance on surrogacy.
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and many states immediately introduced strict abortion bans, affecting the "right to choose in case of fetal abnormality" clause in surrogacy contracts. Due to legal restrictions in the state where the surrogate mother is located, some commissioning families are unable to exercise their contractual rights when the fetus is detected with severe chromosomal abnormalities, and are forced into unsolvable ethical and legal dilemmas.
Some clients who signed contracts in non-friendly states have spent tens of thousands of dollars in additional legal fees on the paternity determination process because their contracts cannot be protected by local courts, and the results are still uncertain.
In 2014, Australian couple David and Wendy Farnell commissioned Thai surrogate mother Pattaramon Chanbua to conceive twins. After the children were born, one of the baby girls was healthy, while the other baby boy, "Gammy", was diagnosed with Down syndrome and congenital heart disease.
The Australian couple took their healthy baby girl and left Gammy in Thailand. Unable to pay for medical expenses, Pataramon raised more than AU$260,000 through online crowdfunding to raise Gammy on his own.
After the incident was exposed, it attracted global media attention. Subsequent investigations found that Gammy's commissioned father, David Fanell, had a record of child sexual assault, and that the Thai surrogacy agency had serious loopholes in the background check.
This incident directly prompted the Thai government to issue a ban in 2015, completely prohibiting the provision of commercial surrogacy services to foreigners.
In August 2014, Thai police discovered 13 babies in an apartment in Bangkok, all of whom were born to Japanese male Mitsutoki Shigeta (grandson of the founder of Japan’s SoftBank) through different Thai surrogate mothers. After the investigation was expanded, it was confirmed that it had employed at least 16 surrogate mothers and had given birth to more than 13 babies. Shige himself claimed that he hoped to "give birth to hundreds of offspring."
After the case was exposed, the Thai police classified it as "illegal use of commercial surrogacy" and launched an investigation. However, because Thailand did not have a clear law prohibiting commercial surrogacy at the time, the relevant handling fell into a legal vacuum. This incident became one of the triggers for Thailand’s final legislation banning commercial surrogacy by foreigners.
In 2016, the Cambodian Ministry of Health issued a letter warning that surrogacy "violates human dignity" and announced that relevant personnel would be held criminally responsible. From 2017 to 2018, many Chinese and Australian surrogacy agencies were arrested by the police in Cambodia, including a large-scale raid on the "surrogacy network" in Phnom Penh in 2018, in which 33 pregnant women were detained.
Some pregnant women were detained during pregnancy and were unable to receive normal prenatal check-ups and medical care. After the birth of their children, they faced difficulties in identifying their identities, and some babies were unable to leave the country for a time.
In these cases, all the fees paid to the intermediary (usually between RMB 300,000 and RMB 600,000) were wasted; more seriously, the client who had entered Cambodia to cooperate with the process was listed as an informed participant by the authorities in some cases and faced the risk of being detained.
In 2015, India announced a ban on providing surrogacy services to foreign singles and same-sex couples (it will be further expanded to a complete ban on commercial surrogacy in 2022). In the same year, Nepal announced a total ban on foreign surrogacy following the earthquake.
When the ban came into effect, a large number of clients were pregnant or had just given birth. The Israeli government chartered a special flight to urgently pick up 26 Israeli surrogate babies stranded in Nepal. Clients of other nationalities are trapped in the triple dilemma of "the child cannot go through exit procedures, the surrogacy contract cannot be performed, and the fees paid cannot be recovered."
Some families stay in Nepal and India for several months, incurring additional accommodation, legal and visa fees. Whether they can successfully bring their children back home still depends on the outcome of individual case negotiations.
The "contract" of domestic underground surrogacy does not have any legal effect, which means that the agreement between the two parties cannot be enforced through judicial channels. This feature is systematically exploited by some surrogacy agencies and surrogate mothers.
According to investigative reports by the Southern Metropolis Daily, Beijing News and other media over the years, one type of situation that occurs more frequently in domestic underground surrogacy is: the surrogate mother in the middle and late stages of pregnancy requires the client to pay additional fees, ranging from tens of thousands to more than 100,000, for reasons such as "insufficient living expenses" and "compensation for physical discomfort". However, the client often has no choice but to submit because the contract is invalid and cannot go to court.
In more extreme cases, when the surrogate mother is about to give birth, she threatens to "don't go to the hospital if she doesn't pay", forcing the client into a desperate situation. Once the client refuses to pay, the fierce conflict between the two parties may evolve into a criminal incident at any time, and the client, as the client of "illegal surrogacy", is already in an illegal state.
In 2023, police in Guangdong, Zhejiang and other places uncovered many cases of fraud in the name of "surrogacy services". The institutions involved generally adopt the following model: publish "successful cases", "real pregnant mothers" and other content on platforms such as WeChat and Xiaohongshu to attract customers, collect "upfront medical fees", "matching fees" or "deposits" ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of yuan and then lose contact.
Since the entrusting party itself is in an illegal entrustment position, reporting to the police faces the worry of self-evident illegality; even if a crime is reported, it is often difficult to recover the full amount of the money paid. Some victims were even administratively punished for "participating in surrogacy activities" after calling the police.
According to incomplete statistics, among the underground surrogacy fraud cases publicly reported by domestic media from 2022 to 2024 alone, the victim's loss in a single case ranged from 100,000 yuan to 2 million yuan.
Children born through underground surrogacy face severe obstacles to household registration recognition under China’s current system. Surrogate mothers usually do not want to leave their names on the birth certificate. The genetic relationship of the commissioned father requires DNA testing to prove, and it is more difficult for the commissioned mother (non-gestational carrier) to be legally recognized as the legal mother.
According to the case records of legal aid agencies, many children born through underground surrogacy were unable to complete household registration and were unable to enter school, seek medical treatment (enjoy medical insurance), or apply for any documents within several years, forming de facto "black children."
In order to solve the household registration problem, the entrusting family often needs to pay extra legal fees far beyond expectations, and the success rate is extremely unstable. The results vary depending on the region and the case, and are unpredictable. Throughout the entire process, the client is always exposed and may be held accountable by the administration.
Back to the original question: As long as I spend money, choose a legal country, and sign a formal contract, will I be able to have a baby?
The answer to the above case is clear:uncertain.
In the United States, you face the financial risks of institutions, the real probability of medical failure, and the uncertainty caused by differences in laws among states; in the gray zone of Southeast Asia, you face policies that may change at any time, threats to personal safety, and the dilemma of children unable to return home; in domestic underground channels, you face a completely unprotected legal vacuum and potential criminal risks.
What can really reduce risk is not "choose the cheapest" or "choose the most expensive", but:
Risks cannot be eliminated, they can only be understood, managed, and fully informed. A good surrogacy agency will not tell you "guaranteed success", but will tell you "what will we do if it fails".
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