Alysa Liu’s Olympic Spotlight Raises Questions About Surrogacy

Throughout the latest Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, it got here to gentle that one of the vital distinguished and celebrated athletes—Alysa Liu—was born by way of surrogacy and an nameless egg donor.

Surrogacy is an assisted reproductive know-how whereby a lady (the surrogate mom) is impregnated and carries a baby for so-called “commissioning” or “meant” dad or mum(s). It’s usually divided into two types—“conventional” and “gestational” —based mostly on whether or not the surrogate mom is biologically associated to the kid.

Whereas the circumstances of Alysa’s conception don’t diminish her human dignity or exemplary accomplishments in any approach, varied commentators have expressed the intense authorized, ethical, and moral issues surrounding the nexus between eugenics and assisted reproductive applied sciences.

After escaping China following the Tiananmen Sq. protests, Alysa’s father, Arthur Liu, constructed a life within the U.S. He selected to start out his household in a “non-traditional approach” and have become a single father by option to Alysa and her 4 youthful siblings with the assistance of one other girl who primarily helped increase all of his kids.

Conveying profound questions as a baby surrounding her sense of id and familial origins, in interviews after the Olympics, Alysa candidly remarked how she knew from an early age that she and her siblings had been completely different: “I imply, we didn’t find out about it for a very long time. I truly figured it out as a result of, I don’t know, I used to be like, as a result of our mother is full Chinese language, too. And I used to be like of like, ‘Oh, I completely don’t look full Chinese language. Like, there’s one thing up.”

Whereas Alysa’s story culminated in gold, the transnational and cross-border implications of surrogacy, in addition to its heightened dangers in facilitating trafficking, abuse, or neglect, have as soon as once more introduced surrogacy to the forefront of worldwide dialog throughout the ideological spectrum.

For instance, kids born by way of surrogacy have more and more voiced objections to the apply based mostly on the way it traumatized them. One of the distinguished advocates for the worldwide abolition of surrogacy, Olivia Maurel, has said: “Probably the most troublesome factor is the trauma of abandonment. … All of us must know who we’re, the place we come from, who our grandparents are, as a result of it defines us for the remainder of our lives.”

Fairly than viewing it as empowering, sure feminist critiques of surrogacy have attacked it for commodifying ladies, particularly susceptible low-income ladies. They’ve additionally argued that it perpetuates varied abuses towards surrogate moms within the context of, inter alia, oppressive authorized contracts, way of life restrictions, and insufficient aftercare.

Likewise, advocates for individuals with disabilities have additionally criticized surrogacy for selling ableism and the pursuits of huge fertility. There have been stories of “commissioning” or “meant” dad and mom abandoning help for surrogate moms and kids or in search of to compel abortion of the unborn little one on varied grounds, together with fetal abnormality or genetic problems.

Lastly, civil society teams have additionally engaged by means of the Declaration of Casablanca for the Common Abolition of Surrogacy.

These efforts have gained the help of each the late Pope Francis in addition to Pope Leo XIV, who not too long ago said: “By reworking gestation right into a negotiable service, [surrogacy] violates the dignity each of the kid, who’s decreased to a ‘product,’ and of the mom, exploiting her physique and the generative course of, and distorting the unique relational calling of the household.”

These critiques are in step with worldwide human rights legislation, which doesn’t acknowledge any affirmative “proper to a baby,” as such. Fairly what is evident is that each little one has rights from conception.

The Conference on the Rights of the Little one acknowledges the kid’s proper to “particular safeguards and care, together with authorized safety, earlier than in addition to after delivery”, and the kid’s proper “so far as doable, to know and be cared for by his or her dad and mom.”

A toddler additionally has the suitable to not be “separated from his or her dad and mom towards their will” besides when conforming to judicial procedures, the legislation, and within the “greatest pursuits of the kid.”

On this regard, the CRC’s non-compulsory protocol prohibits the sale of youngsters, outlined to imply “any act or transaction whereby a baby is transferred by any particular person or group of individuals to a different for remuneration or some other consideration.”

Whereas the authorized framework is express, varied U.N. organs and mandate holders have additionally begun to name for motion to finish this dangerous apply.  

In her 2018 report, the U.N. Particular Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of youngsters known as for States to undertake “clear and complete laws that prohibits the sale of youngsters … within the context of surrogacy.”

In 2024, the U.N. Common Meeting adopted Decision 79/154 on human trafficking that known as upon U.N. Member States to take “preventive measures to deal with … exploitative business surrogacy.”

Lastly, in 2025, the U.N. Particular Rapporteur on Violence Towards Girls and Women  known as for the worldwide abolition of all types of surrogacy, recognizing that surrogacy is a “system of violence, exploitation, and abuse” that “reinforces patriarchal norms by commodifying and objectifying ladies’s our bodies and exposing surrogate moms and kids to critical human rights violations.”

Whereas we ought to be delicate to the plight of {couples} experiencing infertility and accompany them with applicable healthcare providers which are each moral and evidence-based, we should always not neglect that it’s surrogate moms and kids themselves who bear surrogacy’s harshest bodily and psychological burdens.

Due to this fact, we should attempt for its common abolition to make sure that no girl is additional abused and so that every little one might be welcomed because the profound present that she or he is.

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