A same-sex couple in Canada is currently suing the surrogate who made their son possible.
The woman refused an abortion when a cleft lip was discovered on the unborn child she was carrying.
Things do get complicated when we men and women get into the business of playing God. It doesn't have to be something as intimate and yet bound by legal contracts as surrogacy. We do it all the time in life.
But should we be doing surrogacy in the first place? What about the surrogate? And what about the little person who has no voice in matters of his life and death?
According to media reports, everything went south for the Canadian couple and the surrogate after the abortion refusal. "More conflict arose," according to the National Post, "when the mother insisted on keeping to the original plan to have the baby delivered in a private home by midwives, not in a hospital as the parents requested because of the cleft lip." She later requested reimbursement and expenses, which have since made their way into small-claims court and arbitration.
"They didn't get the perfect child they wanted, and they threw me away," the surrogate, described as a single mother and corrections officer, told the Post in an interview. "You know I'm a single mom, you know I have a daughter, and you're basically suing me for my house," she said.
Sally Rhoads-Heinrich, owner of Surrogacy in Canada Online, the agency the litigious couple used, sees an influx of people seeking surrogacy services in her country.
"The whole world is coming to Canada," she says, because of bans in place in the likes of India and Thailand and because socialized health care covers most of her fees.
But money isn't going to alleviate the problems of surrogacy. Children are not for buying and selling.
And as much as a couple wants genetic material from one or both to make it into the creation of a child, there are children in foster care, in need of homes.
And then there is the matter of the women. Surrogacy horrors have made it to the likes of the Times because desperate women are being trafficked and abused to meet demands. But a mother, however well paid or however straightforward the expenses or reimbursements, was never meant to be a mere incubator.
Supporters of a global ban on surrogacy may bring together an unusually diverse coalition; a recent United Nations report decried the violence, exploitation and abuse of women and girls that occurs in the industry.
Surrogacy arises from the natural desire to love and be loved. How can we help meet that need without adding webs of suffering — and death, when you consider selective reduction, more traditional abortion and decisions to be made about excess embryos on ice? Surrogacy ought to be eliminated as an option. It's a step toward putting the humane back into humanity.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolans pro-life commission in New York and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.