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This is the first known American women to die from a surrogate pregnancy. Other surrogates have died around the world, including an Indian woman acting as a surrogate for a U.S. couple.
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Group Calls for Congressional Hearings on Baby Farming Business
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“Women Didn’t Get this Far to be Treated Like Breeding Animals”
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San Francisco–Oct. 12…Congressional hearings are urgently needed to investigate the exploding U.S. baby-farming business that left another paid surrogate mother dead this month — this time an American woman — the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBCN) today said.

An Idaho woman named Brooke, who has served as a surrogate three times, according to reports, died October 8 carrying twins, reportedly for a Spanish couple. Surrogate pregnancy is illegal in Spain and other European countries. The European Parliament called surrogacy and egg sales an “extreme form of exploitation of women” in an official resolution.

“American women are being paid to put themselves at significant physical risk every day in this country to produce babies for others,” said Jennifer Lahl, R.N., M.A., President of the CBCN, which believes surrogacy should be outlawed in the U.S. “These mostly low income women are injected with powerful hormones and other drugs to maximize chances of pregnancy, virtually without government oversight. Women didn’t get this far to be treated like breeding animals.”

The already booming baby-farming business in the U.S. is exploding following the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, as married gay couples look to have families. And celebrities and wealthy American women are increasingly using surrogates to carry their own children, not by necessity but for vanity — to avoid the body changes that come with pregnancy.

“I never thought I’d see the day when women were being openly marketed for their uteri,” Ms. Lahl said. “Members of Congress profess to care about women’s needs. Well, let’s see if they mean it.”

Time Magazine lists pregnancy as one of the “Top Ten Chores to Outsource” in America.

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The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network is part of the Stop Surrogacy Now campaign. We encourage you to read and sign their petition calling on national governments of the world and leaders of the international community to work together to #StopSurrogacyNow.