The Global Story: Why the world wants American surrogates

Asma Khalid (0:00)

Hi there, it's Asma Khalid. I'm one of the hosts of the Global Story Podcast from the BBC. On our show, we try to tell one in-depth story every weekday about where the world and America meet. And this weekend, we've actually got an incredibly thought-provoking bonus episode for you all. It's about the rise of commercial surrogacy in the United States, even as the practice has been largely banned or restricted in most of Europe and parts of Asia. Why are families from around the world turning to the US to find someone to carry their pregnancies? And how is this practice raising new concerns about the ethics of commercial surrogacy? That's what you'll hear in this show. And if you will enjoy this episode, you can always find more from us by searching for The Global Story wherever you get your podcasts. Now, on to today's show.

Here in the US, the surrogacy industry is booming, particularly for the wealthy and the famous. It's become a multi-billion-dollar industry. But take a step outside the US, and the picture looks really different. Paying someone to carry a pregnancy is banned or heavily restricted in most of Europe, and likewise in a number of other countries around the world, such as India, China, and Australia. So the United States has become a global hub for commercial surrogacy. But as the practice has grown more popular and more accessible, so too have the ethical concerns.

Late last year, the Wall Street Journal published this story about a Chinese billionaire who had dozens of children born in the US via surrogates. Then, over the summer, a legal battle erupted in Texas over the fate of a baby in which the surrogate rejected the biological parent's wishes and refused to have an abortion after the fetus was diagnosed with a severe heart defect.

These kinds of cases have raised all sorts of questions around surrogacy. And those questions become even thornier when you take into account that a big portion of American surrogacy is in the service of foreign parents. From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC. And welcome to The Global Story, our show about where the world and America meet. Today on the show, why America has become the world's surrogacy destination, and why that could be about to change.

Emi Nietfeld is a reporter who covers reproductive technology and surrogacy. Now, sitting here in the US., I don't think that I fully understood that American surrogacy is a global story. But Emi does. She has in fact been covering this issue for years, and recently published this wild story in New York Magazine involving a surrogate in Florida and a man from China, the baby's biological parent. The two are now in a legal dispute, and it is being seen as a sort of test case. Emi told me the story actually begins some years ago.

Emi Nietfeld (3:01)

During the pandemic, a man named Ted Joe, who lives in Suzhou, China, decided that he wanted to become a father. He is single, and so surrogacy was his route to parenthood. But surrogacy is illegal in China, so he turned to the United States.

He signed up with an agency who matched him with a woman in Florida named Kyla Simpson.

Kyla Simpson (3:22)

And I'm like, I'm just a young black girl trying to make it. I had a daughter, you know, I also wanted to bless someone to be able to have a child, you know.

Emi Nietfeld (3:31)

She was in her mid-twenties, and she wanted to bless a family with a baby, while also helping her own family gain financial stability and maybe buy a house.

And so she signed a contract saying that her base rate would be $50,000 to carry a pregnancy. But there were extra bonuses, like if she had twins, there were various lost wages. All in all, she'd get paid $130,000 almost from, from Ted Joe.

So they did a double embryo transfer. They put in two male embryos and one of the embryos split and turned into triplets.

Kyla Simpson (4:08)

Yep, you're right. The lady in there that was doing my ultrasound was like, OK, I'm not trying to scare you, but I'm thinking I'm seeing something. I'm like, what are you seeing? I'm scared. She says, I think I see a third heartbeat.

You see what?

Emi Nietfeld (4:25)

In November 2024, she gave birth to those triplets.

Asma Khalid (4:28)

And he couldn't get a visa right away, is my understanding from your reporting?

Emi Nietfeld (4:32)

Exactly.

Ted Joe (4:33)

Like the visa, you know, when you apply it, then you really have the interview. It's quite long. And I waited for more than one month.