A wealthy TV presenter from Spain, whose own son tragically died of cancer at 27, became the adoptive mother of a baby girl at the age of 68. The baby was born through gestational surrogacy in Florida and the tv presenter late son’s sperm was used.

Commercial surrogacy is legal in Florida and is regulated by surrogate laws in Florida, but using the sperm of a dead person to have a grandchild is pretty unheard of. Florida, together with California, is one of the most’ surrogacy friendly’ states in the U.S. and Surrogacy tourism is common. The professor in the video below refers to California surrogacy laws as the “wild wild west of the reproductive business”.

In the case of the 68-year-old presenter, no questions were asked about her age or the fact that the sperm used was that of a deceased person. Bioethics never entered the equation when money had to be paid and a job had to be done. Just like a commercial transaction, a human being was given to someone just because she could pay for it.

The presenter had to travel to Florida because surrogacy is illegal in her home country. The country considers surrogacy a form of violence against women and by law she will not be considered an adoptive mother in Spain but the child’s guardian. 

The European Parliament determined in 2015, surrogacy “undermines the human dignity of the woman since her body and its reproductive functions are used as a commodity.” Italy, Spain, France and Germany ban both altruistic and commercial surrogacy.

The fact that the United States draws affluent international people for commercial surrogacy, raises the uncomfortable question of whether paid childbirth is a service or exploitation for those who can afford it. Wealthy women are not the ones that rent out their wombs so this practise is seen as exploitive of women from poor backgrounds who gestate a baby in their womb out of pure financial necessity. 

Spanish people took to the internet to raise questions about what they called the commercialisation of having a child and the exploitation of children born to fill an emotional gap. She was also badly criticised for not protecting the child’s privacy and selling her story to Hello Magazine in Spain where she is seen posing with the baby in several pictures. 

Surrogacy began in the United States more than 35 years ago, back then, most surrogates were also the genetic mothers, becoming pregnant through artificial insemination.

It all changed in 1986 after the Baby M case, the surrogate got so attached to the baby she carried in her womb that she refused to give the baby to the biological family.