Ep 1171 ｜ Egg Donation Centers Are Exploiting College Girls & Military Wives ｜ Guest： Kallie Fell
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Summary
In this episode of Relatable, host Ally sits down with Callie Fell, Executive Director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CPCN), to discuss the dark underbelly of the IVF and reproductive technology industry in the United States.
Transcript
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Who are the men that are renting wombs and buying babies from women in America?
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What exactly is the dark underbelly of the IVF and reproductive technology industry in
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She is the executive director for the Center of Bioethics and Culture Network, and she
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is here to answer some of these questions for us today.
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We are going to talk about this and so much more on today's episode of Relatable.
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It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Callie, thanks so much for taking the time to join me.
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For those who don't know, can you tell us who you are and what you do?
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I'm the executive director for the Center for Bioethics and Culture.
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I'm also the program director for the Paul Ramsey Institute, which is our project within
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Those who remember my interviews with Jennifer Law, whom I've had on multiple times, may already
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know, but there are a lot of people who are new, who have no idea what CBC does.
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So the Center for Bioethics and Culture is an educational nonprofit that was started by
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And we work in the space of just educating people, educating general public, lawmakers
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on bioethical issues that most profoundly affect humanity and the vulnerable among us.
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We work in the area of making life and faking life, which we can get into later.
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But predominantly how we educate is through filmmaking.
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We have several documentary films now, through podcasts, through writing, through interviews,
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And can you give us a definition of what bioethics is?
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I was sitting last night down for dinner and a gentleman next to me was like, oh, I've never
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even heard of bioethics and I have a biology degree.
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And I'm always kind of like dumbfounded by that.
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But bioethics is really anything in medicine or biotechnological advancement or biomedicine
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So one of the most common things when people think bioethics is abortion, for example.
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But the things that we focus on at our work in the Center for Bioethics and Culture is
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Now it's been, gosh, five years, but on the gender debate.
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And so anything that's affecting how we treat people, bio life issues and the ethics surrounding
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So it's the world of science and medicine and what is actually ethical.
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I always say that science or technology can tell us what is possible, but it can't tell
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And when technology takes us from what is natural to what is possible, we as people have the
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responsibility to ask, but is this moral or is this ethical?
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And by ethics, we just mean like, is this right or wrong?
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Does this fall into a framework that matches the ethic that I think we all would have that
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human life is precious, that it has dignity and therefore we have rights.
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But there is a big debate about when life begins and when life actually becomes valuable
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and what rights that valuable person actually deserves.
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And as you said, that comes up in the abortion debate.
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So y'all are looking at things like IVF and surrogacy too, right?
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And it's anything that's assisted reproduction.
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And I always put that in quotes because young women are exploited for their eggs and they're
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Anything in that arena of third party conception.
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You said that you're a nurse and I know that Jennifer Law was also a nurse, but tell me,
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did you have the same kind of journey as her into the space?
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No, actually, it's kind of a long journey, but I would call it a providential journey.
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And my focus is always at the center been women's health and the health of the babies that she
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But I actually was one of those people that didn't really know what I wanted to do.
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I kind of enjoyed a lot of different things growing up, but I found myself in college in
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a class called reproductive physiology and I was enamored.
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I loved learning about men and women's bodies and the reproductive capabilities.
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And so I went on to study reproductive physiology and I have a master's degree in reproductive
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After graduate school, I was considering going on to become an OBGYN, something in health care.
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Life has a way of kind of making decisions for you sometimes.
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But I went on to do research in women's health, studying endometriosis and preterm birth at a
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Um, and while I was doing that, I found myself, um, really wanting to be more involved in the
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lives of women, not just at a lab bench studying these things.
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So I decided to go back to become a nurse, specifically a perinatal nurse.
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And that's a nurse that, um, takes care of a woman from, um, you know, when she's pregnant
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through labor and delivery and then in the postpartum period.
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So I went back to become a nurse and during all of this, I actually went to a conference,
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um, that, um, was not even remotely on the topic of women's health.
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Um, but I was thumbing through the pamphlet, kind of bummed about who was speaking and what
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And I found Jennifer's photo and a little bio of her talk and what she'd be talking about.
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And I was like, oh my goodness, I have been doing research on pig embryos and doing all
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of these techniques and animals through my graduate studies.
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I'm learning about women's health through my nursing degree.
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And here's a woman who is actively talking about some of these struggles that I was internally
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like kind of thinking about as a graduate student.
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Should we be taking eggs and sperm out of the body and putting them in a dish and then
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Should we be, what is, what these bioethical questions, like what is right?
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Um, but nobody could answer those, you know, professors were kind of progressive and well,
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we can, and I brought it to the church and a lot of pastors at the time.
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Um, I went home, watched the films, um, and just really wanted to get involved.
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And, um, I think Jennifer probably thought I was a crazy fangirl at the time.
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Um, but I, I, again, through, through providential timing moved to California and that's where
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And, um, started volunteering using my expertise in understanding research studies and writing
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and started working as a volunteer for the center for bioethics and culture.
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Um, and then, um, all while working as a perinatal nurse, um, in California.
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And then from there, uh, came on as a staff writer and now I'm the executive director.
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So it's been a really fun journey and I'm very passionate about the work that we do.
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Let's go to, you said egg selling, let's call it egg selling.
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That's typically what I do because I did not realize, maybe I learned it from Jennifer.
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And I know you mentioned that these women are getting paid for this, but you said you
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You said they're being exploited for their egg.
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So I think you have to start with thinking about what kinds of women are targeted to become
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Um, these are women who are young, um, typically between 20 and 30, because those are our fertile
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That's when we're healthiest, our eggs are healthiest, our egg quality and quantity are
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Um, and we think about if, if we were in the market for something, wouldn't we want, um,
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a specific type of, we want the best product and we might want a specific type of that.
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And so young women, um, where you might find these women who might need money.
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Uh, college campuses, for example, who might be taking on college debt or have other things
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going on, um, are advertised to as a way of making extra money.
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Some of them include, um, that I've seen in the past, probably not now, but, you know,
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Um, and they offer actually large amounts of money, um, for their eggs.
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And then these women, um, often too, the advertisements will list a higher amount than
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what they're often given because, um, a woman might answer an advertisement and say, oh, I
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Um, but then she might find out that she's not quite what they're looking for.
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Perhaps, um, she's not an MIT grad or perhaps she's not studying.
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She doesn't know a foreign language or she doesn't have a certain pedigree.
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So then, but she's already in the clinic doors, um, and is intrigued.
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And ultimately to these women, not just egg sellers, but women who go on to become surrogate
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mothers, um, they have a good place in their heart.
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Um, a woman thinks I don't need my eggs right now.
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Of course I would want to help a family have a baby, of course.
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And so their altruistic intentions are exploited.
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And then you on, you incentivize on top of that with funds, funds, yeah.
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Um, one woman I talked to, um, and that I interviewed, um, for her, it was to help her
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Um, and so it just sounds like, I mean, it sounds like the song fancy by Reba McIntyre.
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I mean, she's talking about being a young prostitute because her mom is sending her out to like
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This is not sex, but it is selling your body for money, sometimes for desperation.
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And not just your body, you're not just putting your health at risk, but you are in essence
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as an egg seller, sperm seller, you are giving away your future child.
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That is genetically, um, that is your genetic material that will make a future child.
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And I think that, um, young women don't always think that through.
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So, um, yeah, they just think, well, this is my egg.
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I know people, and I'm sure this person did it from a good place.
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I don't think she was in a desperate situation, but she was very proud and would say on social
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media, how many eggs she sold, how she would say donated and how many people have been able
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And it is amazing because you are willing to give up your own child to someone else.
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And you have no idea how that child will be, will be raised.
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I think it is hard for women to realize because they are so disconnected from the father of that
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And a word on the advertisements too, the advertisements, um, in nowhere on them, do they
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include the known risks or even the statement that there, we don't know what risks there are.
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There's no indication that what she's doing is risky.
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I just spoke with a woman who's actually trying to file a class action lawsuit in Canada who, um,
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sold her eggs twice and the second time, um, was, was harmed physically by it.
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And, um, and is now speaking out and trying to get other women who have been harmed in Canada
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She was, um, she just talks to me about, um, how she called the clinic with, um, pains,
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complaints of shortness of breath and other side effects.
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And instead of talking to a doctor, she was taught, she talked to a coordinator who just
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She actually never saw a physician or a provider of medical care until she was sedated on the
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And so these advertisements, I kind of went in a circle there, but these advertisements
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They use very cunning and slick language to get women into the doors of the clinic.
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And once they're, um, they're exploited for their eggs, um, they're put on high doses of,
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um, hormones and medications that have long lasting side effects.
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I've, we have a film called exploitation that Jennifer produced, um, for the center for biotech
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And it just tells the story of these women who were harmed, lose, having stroke, ovarian
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hyperstimulation syndrome, losing their own fertility.
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Um, and then that's not, those are just kind of immediate risks.
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We don't know what happens to these women long-term, their fertility, long-term, their
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Um, and so they're really exploited and it's a certain type of woman.
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Um, and MIT, I have to say, um, in recent years, their newspaper, the tech has actually
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And I don't believe that they're allowed to advertise in their newspaper anymore because
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they've called them out for what they are, which is elitist and racist and eugenic.
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Um, because people who want an, an egg from a woman, they want a certain type of egg.
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I know that gay men are not the only people that are buying eggs from women, but very often
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And these journeys are, I would say, especially commercialized and glorified today.
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I see it all over social media and unabashedly like Shane Dawson.
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He went through this with his partner unabashedly talking about picking the egg seller from a catalog
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that they wanted, um, her to have a certain look, a certain background.
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There was another couple that we highlighted on the show maybe a year ago who said, you
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know, we wanted her to have, uh, we wanted the baby to have like my smile, but have his
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And so we had to get a woman who looked like this.
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I mean, you're literally picking women out of a Rolodex based on these features and purchasing
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And that's not even the woman that's going to be carrying the child.
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Um, it's very much like someone had explained to me, like the social, the apps for dating,
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you know, you're swiping through and finding and, um, and finding the woman that you want
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It's, that's in the, in the, in the case of gay couples, um, or single men, they're explaining
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two women, um, the egg donor, egg seller, and the surrogate mother.
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And can you, we've talked about that before, but can you talk about why that is?
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Is that a legal requirement that the egg seller and the surrogate or gestator have to be different?
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It's not a legal requirement, but at the end of the last century, most people were pretty
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repulsed at the idea of surrogacy because what we were operating from was like traditional
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Um, meaning that the woman who was carrying the child was also genetically related to the
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Because women were selling their actual biological children.
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Um, and so I think it was a strategic move to help disassociate this process.
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Um, and so to make it a little less messy, it's still fraught with bioethical concerns and
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Um, but now we have an egg seller who is a genetic mother to the child.
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Um, and then we have the surrogate mother who of course is the birth mother to the child.
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And therefore neither can really lay claim to the fact that they're the mother.
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And we even know that surrogates do create that bond with the baby they're carrying, even
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when that baby is not genetically theirs, but it's less likely for there to be that strong
00:17:39.160
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So going back to the egg selling and the egg harvesting, just the process, you said that
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those women, they have to be injected with a bunch of hormones because their bodies have
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If we knew anything, most people don't know anything about women's cycles, but we released
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Sometimes I guess women can do two eggs a month.
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And if that egg is not fertilized, it disintegrates the endometrial lining.
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But in these situations, they're not going through their natural cycle.
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They are hyperovulating so that there are multiple eggs, sometimes dozens of eggs ready
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Again, we're talking about one egg a month naturally versus 12, sometimes at most.
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I have the woman that's doing the class action in Canada was over 40 eggs.
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Because she was part of, she didn't know about this, a guaranteed program for the intended
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Um, they were part of a guaranteed program, meaning that there would be guaranteed a baby
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And so she was, um, she was super responsive to the hormones.
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They put her on, um, an increased dose than even what the standard protocol was, um, to extract
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It also, you mentioned all of the side effects that it could have.
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It also apparently increases the chances of having breast cancer.
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And just anecdotally, I know women who have been public about their IVF journey and that
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A healthy 32 year old woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.
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They have no, um, because they're selected for all of this because people want healthy
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Um, but yes, um, we know several women, um, one who actually, um, is featured in exploitation
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and in our film, Maggie's story, we actually just, um, we're back in touch with her because
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she was diagnosed with, um, ductal carcinoma, which is for women over 50 who have a genetic
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And she had none of that other than her egg donation, but her cancer has returned.
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Um, and so we're just, but it absolutely has a risk for, um, long-term health outcomes.
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And it's, it's deplorable to me because we're not tracking these women.
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We're not, there's no national database that tracks these women who sell their eggs, um,
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long-term, which we do in, um, in the cases of organ donation, we track people who, who
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donate their, um, organs long-term to follow their health risks, to meticulously know what
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Once they donate their eggs, once, um, the commodity has been captured from their body,
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they are lost in medical history and we're doing a huge disservice to women.
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Oh, I think it's because we'll see these increased rates of cancer.
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I think that these cancers that came out of nowhere are going to, we're going to see that
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women who sold their eggs, who were put on high doses, healthy women who respond really
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well to hormones, um, are going to have increased incidences of cancer.
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And then the fertility industry is going to be held accountable, hopefully.
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I don't think fertility industry wants to be regulated.
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They don't want to have to, um, track these women and make this data accessible.
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Is there any, uh, information, any data about the children that are conceived and then born
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Outside of tracking live birth weights or live birth rates.
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And birth weights because they typically are actually smaller babies and born earlier than
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Beyond those, that data, there's very little tracking.
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Um, and I'm hopeful that as these, um, children who are born from these arrangements get older,
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like Olivia Morrell and others, um, they'll speak out about their experiences.
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Um, we have a huge, um, population of donor conceived adults now who are speaking out about,
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um, not having access to their donors information.
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Um, and so I'm hoping the same will happen too in the cases of, um, children who are born
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The problem there is there's no genetic link and they're often not on birth certificates.
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So if parents are honest about their birth story, um, they might not ever know they were born
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You're also depriving that child, not only to their right to their genetic parents, but
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also their right to their medical history, at least half of their medical history.
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I mean, every time I make an appointment for my children, um, especially if it's a new
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You have to fill out grandmother, grandfather, and obviously it's one thing if this child is
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adopted, you try to get as much of that information from their genetic parents as possible.
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Um, but in this situation, you are purposely cut off from that person.
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You may never have any contact with the genetic mother of your child again, if you conceive this
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And a new, a study came out, actually, I was just reviewing this before I came in that
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I think it was 2014 that showed almost half of people who sell their gametes go on to regret
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And I just am thinking back to that college student who's enticed by the financial gain
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And just to think that half of them regret that or wonder where their children might be.
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And, um, you said that they're getting these advertisements.
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Where are they typically getting advertised to?
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Now with the advent of social media, it's, it's, it's there.
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And I see, I don't know if these people are being paid, but I see a lot of influencers who
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their mom influencers and all of a sudden they're on this surrogacy journey.
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I just saw Miss Rachel, who I know a lot of people love, seems like a very sweet person
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And it just adds to this narrative that surrogacy, I don't know if they also used an egg seller
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or anything, but, um, that surrogacy is this altruistic, you know, benign, even benevolent
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Um, but it's, but it's not, would you say that surrogates are exploited in the same way
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I think a different population is often targeted for a surrogate mother than an egg donor.
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Surrogate mothers, um, man, when they, and it seems like more and more contacting me daily
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Um, but surrogate mothers tend to be women who, again, very altruistic.
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Um, they, they typically have small children at home or, or adolescents at home, but, um,
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they've had easy pregnancies and they've had a friend or someone else they know that struggled
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with infertility and they want to give the gift of life.
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And, um, often I found too, in our research that military wives are another big target for,
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From fertility agencies for surrogacy because they're at home with small children.
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They're often hard to employ because they're moving around a lot, um, with their partners
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Um, and this is a way that they can contribute to their household, um, and also help another
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And, um, um, so, um, definitely exploitive in the same way.
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Surrogates have to be pumped with hormones as well in order to carry the child, because
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you have to be in the same part of your cycle that you would be if, uh, naturally, you know,
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a fertilized egg was going to implant into your uterus.
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So your endometrial lining has to be just right.
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You basically have to look like you just ovulated in your body, right?
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We do know studies are showing, we did our own study at, um, the Center for Bioethics
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and Culture, um, looking at 96 American women who had their own, um, spontaneous conceptions,
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their own deliveries and a surrogate pregnancy.
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And we do know that surrogate pregnancies are high risk in nature.
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Um, they set a mom up to have, um, increased rates of C-sections, preterm birth.
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Uh, placental abruption, placental abnormalities, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes,
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And in the United States, um, you know, we really are behind in our maternal morbidity
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And one of the biggest things is preeclampsia and high blood pressure in women.
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And I just find it odd that we still puddle and we still promote surrogacy when we know
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that surrogate pregnancies are more likely to have these same adverse outcomes that we
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see in our records for, um, that are causing our terrible rates of maternal morbidity and
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00:29:12.460
This is for the Christian woman who wants to be edified, equipped, encouraged to worship
00:29:16.720
alongside, fellowship alongside like-minded Christian women from all over the country.
00:29:29.860
You said that there are two different kinds of people.
00:29:35.220
They typically want them to be young and thin and beautiful, maybe rich.
00:29:39.760
Although, like you said, that's just not always the case.
00:29:43.520
But I have heard, I remember I was listening to one couple on a podcast, a gay couple say
00:29:49.220
that they wanted someone who went to an Ivy League school.
00:29:51.720
And so depending where you are, a bunch of Hollywood celebrities, they've got their own
00:30:00.540
But they just want someone who looks good, who maybe isn't inherently unhealthy, who seems
00:30:08.400
Whereas for the surrogate, it doesn't matter what they look like.
00:30:11.240
And it's actually the maybe in some cases, the poorer they are, the better, because the
00:30:16.080
And do they have a history of, you know, full term pregnancies and births themselves?
00:30:22.320
And so, I mean, it's like The Handmaid's Tale, but the very same people that support it
00:30:27.240
say that Christian conservatives are like The Handmaid's Tale because we don't believe
00:30:33.840
It's crazy how people see, they don't see that connection.
00:30:40.600
The genetics of the surrogate mother don't play into the decision for, she just has to
00:30:57.100
And I know that, you know, Brittany, I forget her last name, but I had her on and she was
00:31:02.360
introduced to me by Jennifer and she was the surrogate that carried for the two men.
00:31:08.140
They said, we don't want anything to do with you or this thing anymore.
00:31:20.420
He was discarded like medical waste because they were angry at her that she got diagnosed
00:31:25.020
with cancer and had to deliver the preterm baby.
00:31:29.460
And people need to know that that might not be every single case of surrogacy, but that
00:31:43.860
A lot of people give me that consenting, uh, argument.
00:31:51.220
Um, oh, well, woman can do with what her body, what she wants.
00:31:58.140
Again, we don't know in egg selling what we're doing to these young women, short term, long
00:32:05.240
You can say, you can say there are no known medical risks, which is often what's told to
00:32:12.960
That means that there are no known risks because nobody's looking.
00:32:18.260
Um, as I said, studies are starting to show that these are inherently risky, um, procedures,
00:32:28.400
That's a lot of reasons why women stop doing IVF because of the emotional toll and the physical
00:32:33.860
Um, but they're not being, when I speak to these women who are harmed, they, the harms are gloss
00:32:41.040
They're not truly, I don't think, given, um, informed consent.
00:32:49.280
It's very interesting that the same person that's warning her of the harms or might be
00:32:54.600
harms or telling her what risks there might be there have a vested interest in her signing
00:33:00.700
Um, they have a vested interest in her womb and her eggs.
00:33:04.760
Um, and so it's glossed over also, you know, um, a lot of surrogate mothers, um, are offered
00:33:12.480
lawyers during the contract phase of before they, they have the embryo transfer and they're
00:33:18.660
But that lawyer is typically picked for, paid for by the agency or the intended parents.
00:33:24.220
So there's just a lot of invested, a lot of, um, messy conflicts of interest there.
00:33:30.020
Um, and the other thing is, is we don't always get to do what we want with our bodies.
00:33:34.960
I cannot go on Craigslist and sell myself as a slave.
00:33:41.700
Um, there are limits to what we can do with our bodies.
00:33:44.480
So I absolutely hate that argument that just because it's her body, it's her choice.
00:33:48.840
Um, and then we could also extend that to the baby that she's carrying.
00:33:55.340
Um, these are the unconsenting parties that is, that are so often glossed over in these
00:34:02.860
And when we talk about it, even in my interviews, I find myself talking a lot about the harms
00:34:06.840
that have happened, whether it be emotional or physical harms to the surrogate mother and
00:34:11.460
And then I have to pause and think like, wait a second here.
00:34:15.980
This is a child who didn't ask, who's not consenting, didn't ask to be a part of this.
00:34:21.300
Who has a right to know and be loved by his parents.
00:34:26.480
We don't have a right to do with what our bodies, what we want to do.
00:34:29.140
Those arguments, um, break down when you really look under a magnifying glass.
00:34:34.000
I hear all the time, but I had to use a surrogate.
00:34:44.160
But like you said, no one has a right to have a child by any means necessary.
00:34:49.000
Just because you want to have a child, that's a good desire.
00:34:52.200
And like whoever is saying that you're probably going to be an awesome parent, but you can't
00:34:59.280
There are all kinds of ways that you cannot legally or morally go obtain a child.
00:35:05.620
And so if we can acknowledge that, that some methods of obtaining a child are moral and
00:35:11.120
some are not, then we should apply that to how we conceive them, how we reproduce them,
00:35:18.920
And there, I mean, people, for some reason, really hate when you bring up the reality of
00:35:23.000
adoption, that there are thousands of kids who are earth side, who need parents.
00:35:31.100
Everyone should have a right to their biological child.
00:35:35.440
Again, the any means necessary approach to fulfilling your desires is not a Christian
00:35:41.940
But you can also see just from a pragmatic standpoint, how it leads to really bad places.
00:35:47.480
I'm just thinking, and I want to back up a little bit.
00:35:49.580
We talked about Ms. Rachel and we talked about influencers and talking about the groups
00:35:56.500
Um, and you're very right on that surrogate mothers who, um, who, who have been once or
00:36:05.360
twice and have kind of aged out of the process do go on to become, um, working for the clinics
00:36:13.960
to recruit other women to become, um, egg, uh, or to become surrogate mothers.
00:36:19.860
And I'm just thinking of the story of a woman who contacted me a few weeks ago who just had
00:36:24.560
the surrogacy, uh, pregnancy from, from hell and the whole thing and how she was recruited
00:36:30.160
by, um, family members who worked for the agency.
00:36:33.000
And so I guess to people like that, I just want to say, stop it, you know, stop glorifying
00:36:37.200
this, stop making this, um, mainstream and popular and beautiful.
00:36:44.920
You know, I read something talking about like how the babies are affected by not just
00:36:50.400
egg selling and all of that, but even just IVF, even if it's a husband and wife having
00:36:56.680
And we've talked about this several times on the show, but this was a new fact that I
00:37:00.500
didn't know that if you go through IVF specifically for male infertility, so his swimmers ain't
00:37:07.860
swimming, they're just not mobile for whatever reason.
00:37:10.960
And they're unable to get to the egg to conceive.
00:37:14.460
If you do IVF for that reason, the child is something like 60% more likely to have severe
00:37:23.740
And that makes sense because I'm actually reading this book right now about women's cycles
00:37:29.180
and how the birth control pill affects women's cycles.
00:37:32.660
And there's a part in there just talking about how our bodies go through this natural selection
00:37:39.240
process to make sure that the woman is releasing the strongest egg.
00:37:46.460
Just one egg does the best egg your body deems.
00:37:49.800
And not every sperm is mobile enough, quick enough, can endure long enough in order to
00:37:56.920
It's got to be the best sperm and the best egg.
00:37:59.840
And then the endometrial lining that is there after ovulation is actually supposed to be
00:38:07.660
like the first endurance test for that fertilized egg.
00:38:11.120
It's only the fertilized egg that can get through the endometrial lining to the uterus, get that
00:38:17.260
And as you all know, I'm not educating you, just everyone out there is fascinating to me
00:38:21.180
that, okay, that's the one that's going to make it to implantation.
00:38:28.640
But when you curtail all of that, the body's natural, natural selection process, and you
00:38:34.500
say this sperm that really has no business reproducing because it's not supposed to be
00:38:39.800
like it's his body's way of telling him this sperm shouldn't create offspring.
00:38:46.380
Now, all those children are valuable no matter what their diagnosis is.
00:38:49.860
But you see, like when we try to get around the natural process, we are doing things to
00:38:57.140
Well, ICSI, which is one of the technologies that just introduces one sperm to the egg,
00:39:01.740
rather than just putting an egg in a petri dish with sperm and the best one who gets in,
00:39:09.980
But ICSI, where you actually are choosing the best of both and doing it, does have, it's
00:39:16.200
supposed to be better outcomes, but studies are showing, like you said, that outcomes are
00:39:19.080
actually worse outcomes, including more rates of perinatal death and outcomes.
00:39:24.980
Other congenital deformities and that sort of thing.
00:39:28.820
So when they're actually showing that outcomes are actually worse in those types of technologies
00:39:32.860
where you're just picking one sperm with the egg.
00:39:37.520
Because that journey that the sperm is supposed to go on is actually like important for the
00:39:47.300
Again, when technology takes you from what's natural to what's possible, we have to ask,
00:39:53.720
I want to get more into the gene editing and genetic stuff in just a second.
00:39:57.760
But before we leave surrogacy, you said a stat that I thought was really disturbing on
00:40:06.200
And I've also seen it on X, that there was a 2020 study that showed that at least 34% of
00:40:12.680
intended parents, sometimes the acronym is IP for surrogates, are predominantly single Asian males
00:40:21.220
in their 40s living in Asia, like India, China.
00:40:27.240
So there was a study done recently in Fertility and Sterility, one of the magazines or journals
00:40:32.840
of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine that looked at gestational surrogate pregnancies
00:40:47.940
And 32% of surrogate pregnancies were from intended parents outside of the United States.
00:40:59.980
And then of that 32%, they were predominantly, yes, single men, or men, that could be, it
00:41:10.120
didn't delineate single versus couple, but men, predominantly men from Asia over the age
00:41:19.780
Like a large percentage of that, about, so one third of intended parents are from abroad.
00:41:32.280
Close behind by France and Spain, where surrogacy is also illegal.
00:41:38.740
And do we know, like, are these, are these single males?
00:41:46.220
I'd have, I'd have to look back again at the article.
00:41:54.780
And so, you know, I actually spent a great deal of time in the last, in early 2025, we're
00:42:02.640
still in early 2025, but January, trying to create, like, what would an ideal law for
00:42:11.480
I would love to see surrogacy and the whole fertility industry just blown over and cut
00:42:25.280
Now we're targeting young women to freeze their eggs, not just give away their eggs,
00:42:41.680
Let's stop one third of these gestational surrogacy arrangements.
00:42:48.420
No one can come to the United States to hire a surrogate mother.
00:42:52.220
And I also think the inverse should be true, that we should not leave the United States
00:42:56.440
and exploit other women in other countries to be surrogate mothers either.
00:42:59.740
Um, so I would like to see, um, laws around that, that we just close our borders.
00:43:06.640
No more of that kind of surrogacy tourism, also birth tourism, because you have sometimes
00:43:13.780
surrogates, but people coming here just to give birth, whether they are actually the
00:43:18.540
mother of the child they're bearing or they're a surrogate, they come here to give birth.
00:43:22.400
So their child has dual citizenship, Chinese American citizenship.
00:43:26.320
And I've talked to a lot of people who have actually been nurses, L and D nurses who have
00:43:35.120
No, I, I've had, I've taken care of patients, um, who move over here near the end of their
00:43:40.460
pregnancy or come visit near the end of their pregnancy and, um, deliver here in, well, not
00:43:46.140
here where we are, but in California, um, which actually, if you look at that study even
00:43:50.440
further, um, it goes down to break down what states those surrogate women are from.
00:43:55.500
And I think it was somewhere in 76% of those are from California.
00:44:00.020
Um, because I think the, the proximity to Asia, um, and then also we are the wild, wild
00:44:06.720
west of Bigford, like anything goes in California.
00:44:09.300
You can have a baby by any means necessary doing whatever you'd like.
00:44:17.780
Um, but yeah, I, I working in, in a hospital, I see that happen where, um, women come over
00:44:24.140
from predominantly Asia and my own experience to have, um, their children here.
00:44:35.680
Um, I don't work in a hospital that does that currently, but, um, I used to spend a lot
00:44:39.800
of time with those, those women because they often don't have anyone.
00:44:43.780
They've come over by themselves and they're in the labor room by themselves.
00:44:47.300
And, um, so I often spend a lot of time with them and very sweet women, but they're here
00:44:51.680
to, so that they can have a baby that's, um, that has United States citizenship.
00:44:56.200
My gosh, all that stress has an effect on her long-term also has an effect on the baby.
00:45:01.820
Like people just don't want to consider that how a baby is gestated, how a baby is conceived
00:45:12.580
And there was another study that would just came out this week and it was kind of one of
00:45:17.100
Like we spent, we spent time and money researching that.
00:45:20.200
It just showed that the bond during pregnancy impacted the first year of life for a child and,
00:45:24.980
and the, and the connection between the mother and child for that first year.
00:45:28.460
So if she had a positive pregnancy experience and felt really connected to the child, then
00:45:33.160
that connection, um, only strengthened in the next year.
00:45:37.080
And, and the inverse was not, was true that if she wasn't as connected, then it had a detrimental
00:45:43.300
And I just thought in my head, okay, surrogate pregnancies, again, we have, it is a whole body
00:45:49.000
experience that, that, that woman, um, is, is just her whole entire body.
00:45:57.900
Even if they say that they don't, um, they don't connect with that child or they realize
00:46:04.460
Um, most women we find in studies do bond with that child.
00:46:11.660
And now we, more than, you know, we, we've learned about microchimerism now and, and there,
00:46:16.180
it's such an intricately linked relationship and process.
00:46:19.660
And then that baby, of course, the sounds, the smells, the feelings it feels, all of these
00:46:31.060
Um, and maybe you've had children, you've heard of the baby friendly initiative, right?
00:46:35.880
Which, um, is an initiative put forth by, um, the world health organization to promote
00:46:42.580
And we talk about the golden hour and how important that is that right after birth that that baby
00:46:47.020
goes to, um, the mother it knows because, because that golden hour is so important for,
00:46:52.640
gosh, not just breastfeeding, but breathing and temperature regulation and hormones, just
00:47:00.180
And, but we don't care if it's a surrogate mother, we don't care about baby friendly
00:47:04.960
No, we take that baby away and give them to strangers and people say, well, you don't
00:47:12.480
Well, there are a lot of things that affect us that we don't remember.
00:47:15.560
I always tell this story of my, or maybe I've told it once before, but my oldest, she
00:47:20.680
was born via C-section and she, they didn't give her to me.
00:47:25.900
They put her on the little table that, you know, measures the breath.
00:47:34.220
And so they let me hold her and they wheeled us back up to the room.
00:47:37.700
And then the little, uh, the NICU guy, he comes in, uh, to wheel her away with the little
00:47:44.740
They take her and I say, can you just measure her breath one more time?
00:47:48.760
Whatever the technical term is, the medical term is for that.
00:47:53.660
And so she had been on my chest for probably five minutes and then they laid her on there
00:48:03.460
She just, she really just needed mom at that point.
00:48:10.020
And I know that's not the case for every child.
00:48:11.960
Sometimes they do need extra support, but she needed that skin to skin.
00:48:16.640
She needed the heartbeat that she knew, the smell that she knew.
00:48:19.720
And even if those babies aren't genetically related to the mom that's carrying them, the
00:48:23.880
woman that's carrying them, that's still the only home they've ever known.
00:48:30.940
And it has a really big effect that people just don't realize.
00:48:41.780
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00:49:13.400
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00:49:39.540
You mentioned that India, France, and Italy have all outlawed commercial surrogacy.
00:49:46.960
Italy just recently closed its borders to intended parents within Italy, leaving Italy to exploit
00:49:58.620
So it's always been the case that surrogacy is illegal in Italy.
00:50:04.340
They can't hire a surrogate mother there and do these contractual arrangements in Italy,
00:50:10.800
They could come to the United States and hire a surrogate mother, the Ukraine, Mexico, wherever.
00:50:15.480
But recently, just this year, at the tail end of last, Italy closed its doors both ways.
00:50:21.700
So it became a criminal offense for intended parents to leave Italy to hire a woman.
00:50:31.480
In France, they view this as slavery, modern-day slavery.
00:50:35.780
And so they don't allow surrogacy on the grounds that it's slavery.
00:50:39.700
I often say there's enough about surrogacy that somebody can find something they don't like
00:50:47.600
So whether you think it is deeply regressive and exploitive, whether you are against it
00:50:53.860
because of the harms it causes on women and children, maybe you're against the financial
00:51:02.640
And so I think, you know, India, for them, they closed their borders after children were
00:51:07.540
being left and abandoned because they weren't wanted by the intended parents.
00:51:11.940
And so they actually allow surrogacy for—it's very specific within India, with couples in
00:51:23.360
India, but they don't allow people to come into India to exploit their women.
00:51:34.500
And of course, with the war between Russia and Ukraine, there were all these babies that
00:51:37.880
were abandoned over there because their parents couldn't come get them after they were born.
00:51:42.140
And people just need to realize this is the moral, ethical risk that we are taking every
00:51:47.360
time we engage in some kind of transactional experience.
00:51:53.640
And yeah, there's some consent involved, just like there's consent when it comes to prostitution.
00:51:58.980
But if you've got a desperate woman who is being told this is what you have to do or this
00:52:06.040
And really, none of this is consent if you are never told the adverse effects.
00:52:12.980
You're saying yes to something you don't realize you're saying yes to.
00:52:15.660
We talked the other day on this show about this new technology or a new company that is, of
00:52:23.360
course, out of California, Silicon Valley, that claims that it is helping children win
00:52:31.540
So it's basically just taking the best, best, quote unquote, from the mom and the dad, creating
00:52:38.580
a child, making sure that none of the embryos that are created have these kinds of hereditary
00:52:49.160
Still, you can pick gender, which is pretty normal, actually, for a lot of people who use
00:52:54.560
But I guess this technology takes it to the next level.
00:52:58.800
And this person actually said, who owns this company, that sex is for fun, like IVF is for
00:53:13.020
But people don't realize that this eugenics is very much par for the course when it comes
00:53:20.640
to so much of our reproductive technology industry.
00:53:23.680
The very start of this, the very start of assisted reproductive technologies is eugenic to the
00:53:31.080
So the very first donor, sperm donor, on record was done by, or donation was done by Dr.
00:53:42.040
And he used a medical student, and I think the story goes that it was the best looking medical
00:53:48.540
student that he had to inseminate a woman without her knowledge while she was anesthetized.
00:53:55.460
She thought she was being inseminated with her own husband's sperm.
00:54:01.040
But Dr. Pankost had realized that he was shooting blanks.
00:54:06.240
So he then used his medical student to inseminate this woman without her knowledge.
00:54:13.080
And so, and the best looking, that's an important point and aspect because it is so eugenic.
00:54:19.520
The founder or developer of IVF, Dr. Edwards, was a part of a eugenic society.
00:54:27.640
And I find it incredibly disturbing that I did a little digging on him when I got into this space
00:54:35.220
that on Louise Brown, who was the first test tube baby in the 70s, on her 25th birthday,
00:54:42.220
he gave a speech or spoke about it and said that infertility, and I'm loosely quoting here,
00:54:50.420
I probably won't get every word right, but infertility or IVF was more than just about infertility.
00:54:57.400
It was about finding out who was in charge of conception.
00:55:01.300
And was it God or was it scientists in the lab?
00:55:05.120
And his conclusion was that it was him, it was scientists that are in charge.
00:55:12.460
And so, yes, from the very beginning, this science, this technology has been eugenic.
00:55:17.820
And then, of course, we see it as we've spoke at length about egg selling,
00:55:21.560
certain pedigree is selected, a certain person is selected.
00:55:28.560
And then now we see it in a technology that you're talking about, pre-implantation genetic testing,
00:55:36.180
which can be offered to couples or single people, whoever is using IVF and or surrogacy,
00:55:43.340
as an add-on feature to their, because it's sold and it's marketed.
00:55:50.500
And I actually, I had a very interesting conversation with a woman in England who is an embryologist
00:56:01.520
And she agrees that it's just market, it's a marketing, it's the new hot thing.
00:56:09.820
It's everyone wants the next new cutting edge technology thing.
00:56:20.440
I think I saw that on X, all the buzz that that article was getting and that new technology.
00:56:37.100
And I'm so glad that CBC is talking about this because not enough people are.
00:56:45.800
And then just a few, like just a few years ago, it's not that I think that, you know,
00:56:55.860
You've been working in this, but I do credit Jennifer a lot.
00:57:04.000
However, that conversation, I will say, had a domino effect.
00:57:08.320
And I can't take credit for it because it was all Jennifer's expertise and my audience
00:57:13.380
But that was one of the first conversations or discussions about this on any conservative
00:57:22.840
And after that, I've seen more and more, thank God, conservative commentators, podcasters,
00:57:29.740
influencers, whatever, say, hang on, this is weird.
00:57:34.220
And there's something about this that I think is worth investigating at the very least.
00:57:40.820
And we hope to get the Trump administration looped in on some of those risks.
00:57:47.920
Where can they find the movies that you've helped produce?
00:57:51.400
Because we didn't even get into how gender also, like everything that you were saying,
00:57:56.940
Now I'm like, I thought about this, but you were talking about the lawyers that are hired,
00:58:00.980
the doctors that are handpicked to approve these women to sell their eggs and surrogacy and
00:58:07.520
It's very similar to the gender industry, which is a child can walk in, say, I want
00:58:13.820
They handpick the endocrinologist, the psychologist, everyone who they know is going to be affirming
00:58:18.260
of that child so they can make thousands of dollars off of sterilizing and butchering
00:58:32.340
Because when you sterilize and you put a child on puberty blockers and you're setting
00:58:36.660
them up to have to use assisted reproductive technologies if they decide to conceive children
00:58:43.240
These children, as young as eight, younger, are asked about fertility preservation, which
00:58:51.580
And then two, what eight-year-old knows how many children and what kind of family they
00:58:57.220
If you would have asked me that, I would have said I wanted nine children.
00:59:01.720
But you're setting this child up for yet another industry.
00:59:07.480
I remember it was Jennifer who said that they're creating lifelong slaves to the medical industrial
00:59:15.280
And, you know, making a lot of money off of it.
00:59:17.980
Anyway, you all produced a documentary kind of about this, right?
00:59:22.060
Well, we have three, a trilogy of films on the space of gender medicine.
00:59:26.720
We have a trilogy and some of our assisted reproductive technologies.
00:59:32.780
There's one on egg donate, egg selling, surrogate mothers called breeders.
00:59:40.300
Those, all of our films are completely free on YouTube.
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Um, and then I, there's a, we have so much information on our YouTube channel, slews of
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interviews that I've had with, um, those who are donor conceived, surrogate mothers, um,
00:59:59.500
And, and that's what really, we need people to tell their story.
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And if this has been you, maybe people are listening and they've been an egg seller or
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a surrogate mother and they want to tell their story.
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So, um, yeah, we can be found at cbc-network.org.
01:00:21.720
Callie, thank you so much for taking the time to come on.