We may have over-egged today’s newsletter with stories about surrogacy, but they all appeared this week with a common theme: what about the mothers? The accepted wisdom is that most mothers are well compensated and give up the child happily.

Not always.

Take the case in England of a surrogate mother who has just been jailed for 22 weeks for stalking a judge and a court welfare officer. The terrified family court judge had awarded the child she bore to the commissioning gay couple even though Lian Harris had changed her mind and wanted to keep it.

Ms Harris snapped.

Over a year she harassed the judge, protested outside the house of politicians and lawyers, unfurled a banner on Westminister Cathedral saying “Family courts do evil”, attempted to fasten herself to the second-floor balcony of the social worker’s home, and tried to organised harassment on Facebook, amongst other stunts.

Not a happy camper.

Ms Harris is said to be an exceptional case. But how do we know? Where are the longitudinal studies to prove that surrogate mothers live happily ever after once they surrender the child they carried for nine months?

Michael Cook
The accepted wisdom is that most mothers are well compensated and give up the child happily. Is this fake news?
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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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