"Breeders: A Subclass Of Women", A Documentary Which Knows Nothing About Surrogacy

by Dawn Marmorstein

When I hear the term “Breeders,” I automatically think of that friend or relative that looks at you and announces she is pregnant again for the third, fourth or fifth time. The documentary “Breeders: A Subclass of Women” takes a cheap, unresearched shot at the surrogacy industry and globally refers to surrogate mothers as “Breeders.” This newly-released documentary, created by the Center for Bioethics and Culture, takes the most extreme three cases of surrogacy and one case of co-parenting gone wrong, and attempts to make a gross generalization that the experiences of these four surrogate’s is identical to those of every surrogate mother.  But the unfortunate reality of this mischaracterization is that this documentary would be more appropriately titled “I Attempted Surrogacy Independently Without Any Formal Oversight By Professionals, and This Is What Happens If You Make The Same Mistakes I Did.”

Agencies, other professionals and everyone else in surrogacy industry should use this documentary to encourage recipient parents and surrogate moms to hire agencies and the necessary professionals to have a successful surrogacy journey because if they don’t, these are the types of situations which can arise. In two of the stories depicted, one surrogate carried for her brother, and the other involved some undefined adult relationship, with the surrogate carrier never having given birth previously.  Both of them were well over 40 years of age, and one of them was clearly obese and had some type of relationship with the recipient parent, with discussions of her being a stay at home mom of the child while the recipient parent worked. If there was legitimate surrogacy agency oversight or other oversight by professionals who knew what makes a women suitable to be a surrogate mother, neither of these women would have come close to passing any of the psychological or medical screenings a surrogate mother routinely undergoes. Of course, due to both of the women’s advance age during pregnancy, they were each high risk, resulting in both suffering pregnancy complications. But this is completely irrelevant to them being surrogates. Any woman who becomes pregnant runs the risk of developing complications during pregnancy. This is a known fact. One of the female surrogate mothers even said quote, “We thought everything would go well, but the babies were born two weeks premature.”

Huh? Most doctors agree baby can be born at anytime between 37 and 40 weeks. The above statement clearly shows that the producers of this documentary were looking for sensational soundbites merely to irk those who aren’t familiar with childbirth. Anybody familiar with pregnancy duration know that statement, in itself, is ignorant.

Of the other two surrogates targeted in this documentary, one did gestational surrogacy independently -- but without a contract numerous times, without any psychological evaluation, and without any discussion on how the surrogate or parents would feel if the child had genetic issues. This last omission was critical, as an issue arose when an ultrasound determined that the baby the surrogate was carrying had significant genetic abnormalities. This happened not once but several times with two different set of recipient parents.  If the recipient parents had hired proper professionals to screen the surrogate mother, and if she had the proper medical and psychological screenings, these issues would have been addressed long before she was matched and becoming pregnant.

Again another appropriate title for documentary would be I was surrogate without proper legal, psychological or medical screening and I had a bad experiences multiple times. The other case was Traditional Surrogacy where the surrogate mother is also the child’s biological mother. Most states have a legal ban on traditional surrogacy and very few agencies or other professionals will take a traditional surrogacy case. The main reason is since the surrogate mother is the child’s biological mother she automatically has legal rights to the child because shes its birth mother just like she is in adoption. If a women is going to be a traditional surrogate it’s important that a woman understand she is going to be that child’s biological mother and she will not be raising the child prior to her becoming pregnant. Its also very important that the necessary psychological testing be completed to makes sure she understands what she is agreeing too this was clearly a step which was missing from this story in the movie it was very clear that the women had not had proper psychological counseling or testing and clearly didn’t understand what she was agreeing too prior to becoming pregnant.

After seeing this documentary, it is very clear that the people who created this documentary utterly failed to do their research on the surrogacy industry. There was not a single professional who worked for an agency, not a reproductive lawyer, no one who could properly explain the surrogacy process, and shed light on why each step is an essential component of that process which should never be skipped. After all, surrogacy creates babies, and good parenting starts prior to conception.  if you're going to become a parent through surrogacy, you can not afford to take any shortcuts or skip critical legal contracts or screening procedures. Doing so results in the outrageous outcomes portrayed in this documentary. If you choose not to do your own due diligence and follow an established protocol using the requisite professional, your story will be leaked to the world via pseudo-documentary films like “Breeders” which present a very one-dimensional and inaccurate view of the world of surrogacy. Remember, the media’s job is to attract viewership, readership, and attention from the masses,  and the typical, successful and squishy surrogacy stories which unfold each day don’t sell.

Thats why all the positive surrogacy stories are typically and routinely omitted from the media.  What the media feeds on are stories like those showcased in documentaries like “Breeders.” But these nightmarish scenarios only play out when a recipient parent chooses to go online to find a surrogate mother, and then chooses to skip all of the steps necessary to determine whether or not that surrogate mother is the right choice. Whether its skipping the legal contracts where the surrogate mother and recipient parents are advised individually of their respective legal rights under a surrogacy agreement, or whether the recipient parents don’t require the surrogate to undergo a formal psychological evaluation, the end result is precisely what ultimately transpires in this documentary: Disputes arise that could have been resolved prior to the surrogacy even commencing, but too late because a baby has already been born. That’s the newsworthy event that is highlighted on the evening news. But rarely does any of the good that often comes from a surrogacy journey make headlines.