Surrogate pressured to abort after cancer diagnosis: ‘The fathers wanted a death certificate’

A young woman contacted the Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC) with a horrifying surrogacy story, reinforcing how inherently exploitative surrogacy is.

According to the story, written by CBC’s Jennifer Lahl, a woman wrote to the group about her niece, who had been a surrogate once in the past. After having an overall positive experience, she decided to do it a second time.

It quickly became a nightmare.

“[D]uring her second trimester, she was diagnosed with aggressive metastatic breast cancer. The problem facing her niece, she explained, was if she consented to treatment directed at her cancer, she would be required to terminate the pregnancy because the cancer therapy would be harmful to the developing 24-week fetus,” Lahl wrote. “Unwilling to abort the baby, the surrogate mother and her family were left trying to find a hospital where she would be allowed to deliver the baby early, in order to allow her to begin her cancer treatment. They knew that at this stage in the pregnancy the baby might not survive but that with support from the hospital staff, the baby could possibly survive.”

The woman, Brittany Pearson, eventually came forward in interviews with the Daily Mail and with Allie Beth Stuckey.

Surrogacy Horror: Gay ‘Dads’ Demand Abortion | Guest: Brittney Pearson | Ep 836

It is very common for pregnant women diagnosed with cancer to be told they must have an abortion in order to go through treatment. However, it is possible to treat cancer safely during pregnancy. Surgery and chemotherapy can both be used after the first trimester. In cases of breast cancer specifically, abortion is frequently recommended, but that is increasingly coming to be seen as an outdated, unnecessary approach.

Pearson explained that doctors initially wanted her to take a form of chemotherapy that was safe during pregnancy until she hit 34 weeks. Then they would give her body time to heal and induce labor at about 36 weeks. The would-be parents, who had said they didn’t want a baby who was born prior to 39 weeks because he might have health problems, were convinced to accept that; however, when the cancer was found to be much more widespread, with a more aggressive chemotherapy treatment plan needed, doctors wanted to pursue induction earlier. Pearson said the couple wanted the baby “immediately terminated” and “erased” as they believed the little boy had no chance of survival.

“It was frustrating because I wanted to give them a family,” she said. “[T]hey said they cared but they didn’t. I felt betrayed and heartbroken.”

Still, Pearson refused abortion, and the couple retaliated by threatening to abandon both the surrogate and the baby if she didn’t comply with their demands… and threatening to sue both Pearson and the hospital. Their legal threats were so vicious that Pearson said her oncology team was even afraid to treat her without consulting lawyers first.

Surrogates are often low-income women, who typically think they have an opportunity to make large amounts of money doing something good for another person. Meanwhile, the people “renting” the surrogates’ bodies are typically wealthy, giving the contract an immediate power imbalance… and making threats of abandonment much more significant. Lahl writes (emphasis added):

[T]he two intended fathers wanted her to abort the baby because they didn’t want a baby who would be born prematurely, and who may have serious medical needs. The fathers refused to entertain the idea of allowing the baby, if delivered alive, to be adopted by the surrogate or someone else.

The fathers stated they didn’t want their “DNA out there” being raised by someone else.

Even one of the surrogate’s doctors said they knew someone willing to adopt the baby, but the fathers just wanted a “death certificate” for the child and asked that no life saving measures be performed on the baby if he was born alive.

It is unclear why the fathers requested a death certificate, but maybe it was to render the surrogacy contract null and void, since the pregnancy didn’t end with them receiving the baby.

Surrogates are often paid their compensation throughout the duration of the pregnancy, with the final payment made at the surrendering of the child and relinquishing their maternal rights if applicable by state law.

Ultimately, a hospital was found that was willing to induce labor prematurely. Pearson was induced at 25 weeks, she told Allie Beth Stuckey on her Relatable podcast, and the baby boy died shortly after while being held and swaddled by Pearson’s mother because the men who hired Pearson allegedly didn’t want to provide him with life-saving measures.

This is, unfortunately, not uncommon with surrogacy; surrogate mothers are frequently pressured to have an abortion if the preborn child is found to have a disability, for example. Other surrogate mothers have been abandoned by the would-be parents, leaving them on the hook for medical expenses. Sherri Shepherd, well-known as a former host on “The View,” notoriously abandoned her surrogate and had to be forced by a judge to pay child support for the baby.

The problem with surrogacy is that it empowers people to feel as if they are entitled to other people’s bodies: the body of the woman whose womb they are renting, and the bodies of the children they are creating. Surrogacy is exploitative and unethical, and this sad case is just another example of why.

Ultimately, Pearson said the experience left her feeling like a “rented-out uterus,” and that she had been prepared to fight for the baby’s survival all the way through. “The first thing I thought after I was diagnosed was I want to keep this baby safe and bring it earthside,” she said. “I would have been there, I would have given him every chance of survival.”

Editor’s Note, 7/17/23: This article was updated with new information from the surrogate’s interview with Relatable. 

Editor’s Note, 7/5/23: This article originally misattributed the source of this article, and this has now been corrected. We regret the error.