EXCLUSIVE: Pro-life advocate warns against commercializing surrogacy and coercive abortions
After a gay couple in Ontario sued their surrogate mother for not aborting a child with a livable defect, a Pro-life group is warning against the urge to commercialize surrogacy and coercive abortions
After a same sex couple launched a lawsuit against a surrogate mother for not aborting their baby after knowing the otherwise healthy baby was going to be born with a cleft lip, the Campaign Life Coalition is calling for laws to prevent “coercive abortions.”
In an exclusive interview with Juno News, Josie Luetke, the director of education and advocacy at Campaign Life Coalition, chimed in on the case, likening the incident to The Handmaid’s Tale because the couple “objectifies both women and babies.”
The same-sex Canadian couple filed the lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court this May, two years after the birth of their son. The parents allege that the surrogate mother refused to abort the child after the couple requested her to do so because the baby was showing signs of being born with a “cleft lip and possible genetic abnormalities,” as per the National Post.
After a same sex couple launched a lawsuit against a surrogate mother for not aborting their baby after knowing the otherwise healthy baby was going to be born with a cleft lip, the Campaign Life Coalition is calling for laws to prevent “coercive abortions.”
In an exclusive interview with Juno News, Josie Luetke, the director of education and advocacy at Campaign Life Coalition, chimed in on the case, likening the incident to The Handmaid’s Tale because the couple “objectifies both women and babies.”
The same-sex Canadian couple filed the lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court this May, two years after the birth of their son. The parents allege that the surrogate mother refused to abort the child after the couple requested her to do so because the baby was showing signs of being born with a “cleft lip and possible genetic abnormalities,” as per the National Post.
“I think it exposes how harmful and exploitative surrogacy is, in that it really showcases how, with surrogacy, the woman, the surrogate, is treated as a vessel, very much Handmaid’s Tale, and the child is treated as a product,” Luetke told Juno News in an interview. “The surrogate commented that the child was less than perfect, and so the couple complained.”
“You’re treating a human being like they’re a defective product that you didn’t get exactly what you wanted, and now you feel entitled to a lawsuit.”
The “Handmaid’s Tale imagery” gets employed by abortion advocates frequently, as a prominent element of the story is women being forced to go through with pregnancies. To Luetke, The Handmaid’s Tale imagery is extremely relevant for surrogacy.
“We don’t want anyone to be pregnant who doesn’t want to be,” She said. “Now, we don’t think that women should kill their children once they’re already pregnant, but this idea of vulnerable people being coerced into these arrangements and then being controlled by the couple that’s contracting their services-that is straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Luetke argued that the problems with the lawsuit are “inherent with surrogacy” but that the lawsuit highlights why the dynamic of surrogacy is “so problematic.” She noted that this was just one story that made headlines, but that thousands of abortions are committed for the same reason, which she said was “essentially eugenics.”
“Many of these abortions. I mean, this was a case where she was asked to abort at 22 weeks. So many of these abortions are taking place in the second or the third trimester, and our tax dollars are paying for it,” she said. “A lot of people go to Canada for surrogacy because our healthcare is covered here, but that also goes for abortions like these.”
According to a study by Patricia Maloney, a pro-life blogger using Freedom of Information requests to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, over a five-year period, there were over 6,380 abortions committed past 20 weeks of gestation in Canada, excluding Quebec.
According to another study of second-trimester abortions occurring in Quebec hospitals between 1989 and 2021 by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 48.1 percent of second-trimester abortions were committed due to “fetal anomaly.” Between 2011 and 2021, the percentage was 66.8 per cent.
As there are no laws restricting abortion in Canada, many of these abortions carried out past the point at which a baby is viable outside of the womb are performed even for “anomalies that are compatible with life,” according to Luetke.
“We pay for 1000s of similar abortions like this, where a baby is ‘less than perfect,’ and so we kill them,” she said.
Luetke took aim at the surrogacy advocates featured in the National Post article, which first reported on the case. She noted that the advocates made the case for commercializing surrogacy, as in Canada, surrogate mothers are not allowed to get paid, like they are in the U.S., and can only invoice expenses related to the pregnancy.
“The claim in the article is that (commercialization) would help because these women are vulnerable. That to me seems like mental gymnastics,” Luetke said. “ It would just make this problem so much worse because you then have very vulnerable women, poor women who are getting into these unfair contracts simply because they need the money so desperately.”
She noted that the article mentions that there is approximately one surrogate mother per 100 couples looking to have a baby, and that, due to demand being so great, Canadians will likely see a push to legalize commercial pregnancies in the coming years.
“We need to say, actually, not only should we not commercialize surrogacy, but we should actually criminalize the practice because, as I said before, it is inherently exploitative,” Luetke argued. “ It treats women as objects, and it treats children as objects.”
Luetke also called for MPs to reexamine a failed 2010 private member’s bill, “Roxanne’s Law,” which was meant to prevent women from being coerced into getting an abortion.
“I think that it’s time to look at such legislation again, especially for surrogates who are particularly vulnerable in these arrangements. But really for anyone, because we see in practice that many women are pressured to abort,” she said.
“In this case, this surrogate was pressured, and thankfully, she ultimately decided to choose life and not abort. But it very easily could have gone the other way, especially if she’s not aware of what her rights are, especially if she’s worried about future legal action, and she’s worried about whether her future expenses will be covered.”