The TRUTH About Surrogacy as Christians

Ajouté : 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Can a Christian woman become a surrogate mother? And underneath that question are bigger ones. Is surrogacy just helping a family or does it cross a moral boundary that scripture and Christian ethics cannot ignore? What about infertility?

[00:00:17]Real pain, real sorrow, real desire to have children. Am I just helping someone to deal with this pain? What about some modern surrogacy being a business with contracts, agencies, and a lot of money that are being involved? In this video, I first want to define what surrogacy clearly is, show the two types, and give you some real world context as well as lay out a Christian ethical concerns without pretending that this is a easy topic. What is a surrogate mother? A surrogate mother is a woman who carries and delivers a baby for another person or couple who will become the children's parents after birth. There are two types of surrogacy. The traditional surrogacy, this is where the surrogate's egg is fertilized by the intended father's sperm or a donor's sperm. That means that a surrogate is the biological mother of the child. Now the second type of surrogacy which is in highrise in our culture today is gestational surrogacy and this is when an embryo is created through IVF using an egg and a sperm of an intended parents and then it's implanted in a surrogate. In this case the surrogate has no genetic tie to the baby that she carries. Now, surrogacy is becoming more common, especially as it's a solution for infertility, and it's an option for same-sex couples pursuing children. The rise is tied to both reproductive technology and shifts that are happening in our culture. And here are some snapshots to show the direction that this is going. CDC reported 30,927 surrogate births in the US from 1999 to 2013. Globally, surrogacy has become a major industry. Reports describe it as a multi-billion market that has rapidly grown. And there is a disturbing part to this. In many places, there's no oversight. There's no reporting.

[00:02:18]Surrogates don't always understand the medical, emotional, and legal risks. Now in this video we will look at five ethical and biblical stances on this.

[00:02:27]But before we do that I want to highlight something that there is a compensation that's involved and some people do it for the sake of money.

[00:02:35]Others do it to help other couples and payment may vary by country and whether surrogacy is commercial or there's another version of it. But in the US surrogates can pay get paid from $30,000 to $50,000 plus expenses. Some countries only allow atistic surrogacy where expenses are reimbursed but there is no additional fee. Here are five Christian ethical concerns, biblical concerns concerning a Christian woman becoming a surrogate mother. Can a Christian woman become a surrogate mother? And underneath that question are bigger ones. Is surrogacy just helping a family? Or does it cross a moral boundary that scripture and Christian ethics cannot ignore? What about infertility? Real pain, real sorrow, real desire to have children. Am I just helping someone to deal with this pain?

[00:03:33]What about some modern surrogacy being a business with contracts, agencies, and a lot of money that are being involved? In this video, I first want to define what surrogacy clearly is. show the two types and give you some real world context as well as lay out a Christian ethical concerns without pretending that this is a easy topic. What is a surrogate mother? A surrogate mother is a woman who carries and delivers a baby for another person or couple who will become the children's parents after birth.

[00:04:04]There are two types of surrogacy. The traditional surrogacy, this is where the surrogate's egg is fertilized by the intended father's sperm or a donor's sperm. That means that a surrogate is the biological mother of the child. Now, the second type of surrogacy which is in highrise in our culture today is gational surrogacy. And this is when an embryo is created through IVF using an egg and a sperm of an intended parents and then it's implanted in a surrogate.

[00:04:36]In this case, the surrogate has no genetic tie to the baby that she carries. Now, surrogacy is becoming more common, especially as it's a solution for infertility and it's an option for same-sex couples pursuing children. The rise is tied to both reproductive technology and shifts that are happening in our culture. And here are some snapshots to show the direction that this is going. CDC reported 30,927 surrogate births in the US from 1999 to 2013. Globally, surrogacy has become a major industry. Reports describe it as a multibillion market that has rapidly grown. And there is a disturbing part to this. In many places, there's no oversight. There's no reporting.

[00:05:27]Surrogates don't always understand the medical, emotional, and legal risks.

[00:05:32]Now, in this video, we will look at five ethnical and biblical stances on this.

[00:05:36]But before we do that, I want to highlight something that there is a compensation that's involved. And some people do it for the sake of money.

[00:05:44]Others do it to help other couples and payment may vary by country and whether surrogacy is commercial or there's another version of it but in the US surrogates can pay get paid from $30,000 to $50,000 plus expenses. Some countries only allow atistic surrogacy where expenses are reimbursed but there is no additional fee. Here are five Christian ethical concerns, biblical concerns concerning a Christian woman becoming a surrogate mother. Number one is God's design. Procreation belongs inside heterosexual monogamous marriage. From a creation point, God sets this norm and it's clear. He designed children to be conceived and raised in a covenant union of husband and wife. And God's command from the beginning was be fruitful and multiplied. The creation story from Genesis 1:2 sets this pattern. Male, female, marriage, and family. Now, God does appear to have allowed exceptions in the fallen world like divorce was permitted by Moses, but Jesus still said it was not God's original plan. Even polygamy existed or was allowed in certain ways though the reasons aren't fully clear in the Bible. What we have to understand is that just because something happened historically does not mean it's justifiable today. A lot of what we see in the Old Testament after Genesis 1 and 2 account is a description. It's not a prescription as what God would want to see. Now some might argue and say well surrogacy was actually in the Bible. Surrogacy like arrangements were used by patriarchs.

[00:07:34]For example, Abraham in Genesis chapter 16 and he had a relationship with Hagar but it was disastrous. Jacob in Genesis 30 with Bila and Zipla but it also created a lot of disastrous results.

[00:07:51]Now, some may argue, well, that's not surrogacy because it involved sex with servants or concubines. And they are right. It's not identical to modern IVF surrogacy. These women were part of the ancient household structure. And because Hagar belonged to Sarai, according to the worldview of that day, it was seen differently than adultery outside of the household. And so what makes this even more sobering, this account of surrogacy, is that these people weren't paid. Uh it was most likely not consensual and it involved servants who had very little or no choice. So these examples do not give modern Christians a green light. If anything, they actually warn us how messy and how painful surrogate type arrangements become. The second thing is creation does carry massive weight in Christian ethics. So not only there's a creation story in Genesis and we see the mess that surrogacy arrangement type created in families. All you got to do is just read uh Abraham's and then Jacob's accounts.

[00:09:04]But we also see throughout the New Testament that creation is not a minor detail in the scripture. It's one of the main foundations for Christian moral reasoning. For example, Jesus appears to creation to define God's original intent for marriage. Paul argues against homosexuality by appearing to God's creation design in Romans chapter 1. In light of Genesis 1 and 2, Paul addresses women's roles to explicit appeal to Genesis 1. Paul also describes elder qualifications with one wife language.

[00:09:42]Again, driving point back to Genesis 1.

[00:09:45]What does this mean? Genesis 1 and 2, it's not just history. It is God's blueprint. Therefore, it carries weight in how we view what is allowed and what is not allowed. Number three, the womb is not a neutral rental space.

[00:10:05]This is where the modern surrogacy tries to normalize something Christians should not treat as neutral. The womb is not just a container that provides nutrients and shelter. Pregnancy is deeply formative physically, emotionally and psychologically for both mother and the child. So with the traditional surrogacy, the surrogate is legally recognized as the mother because she has both the aspects of the motherhood, generic and gestational. Now with the gestational surrogacy where the embryo is implanted, the surrogate is often treated legally as a prenatal babysitter, a human incubator with no rights to the child. But biblically and humanly pregnancy is not detached just like that. A womb is not like a room you rent from somebody in the house. You bring your furniture and you get out.

[00:11:02]What we must understand is that fatal cells can cross from the placenta into the mother's bloodstream and remain in her body for years. Meaning the mother can carry the cells from the child with the child's DNA long after the pregnancy. Also, mother's cells can cross into the baby and integrate into the child's tissues and potentially influencing child's development. So a surrogate experiences carrying the child, bonding with the child and it's forming a relationship even if she tries to not create that bond. So to treat pregnancy as a service you provide is to treat something sacred like it's merely mechanical or transactional which is even biology tells us it is not. So number four, surrogacy turns children into commodities. This is one of the most painful parts, but it's also real.

[00:12:04]When the large sum of money are exchanged, the child will start to look like a product, something that's bought, something that's transferred, and something that's delivered rather than a gift from God. The Bible is very clear that every child is made in the image of God. Every child has a dignity and worth, and life is sacred, not transactional. Commercial surrogacy reduces this sacred reality that we are made in the image of God to a contract.

[00:12:34]Objectifying the child and often the woman that's carrying the child. And the last thing we must consider is surrogacy is the key path to parenthood for same-sex couples. Homosexual couples consider surrogacy after other fertility treatments or pregnancy is medically unsafe. For the same sex couples, especially male couples, surrogacy is not just an option. It's the only path.

[00:13:01]Christians, the Bible is very clear why homosexual relationships go against God's order and God's created plan. I have a whole video on what does the Bible teach on homosexuality, and you can check that out later. So practically surrogacy becomes part of a system that separates conception from marriage and in many cases separates children from their biological mother by design. So how do we respond? So we can and we should and acknowledge the sorrow of infertility. It's a real grief, real longing and for a lot of people it's real tears. But sorrow does not automatically justify every single option. As someone with my wife who couldn't have children for over 13 years, I do know how that feels. But I like what theologian Wayne Grudam puts it, and he puts it sharply, and I think it's worth hearing it. He recognizes the sorrow of childlessness, but he also says that sorrow is no reason to overstep the moral boundaries that God has set in his word concerning the conception and bearing of children. So, can a Christian woman become a surrogate mother? I don't believe that a Christian woman should become a surrogate mother, especially in these commercial arrangements. And the reason is very simple. Surrogacy asks a woman to use her womb in the way God did not design it to be used. It fractures motherhood.

[00:14:34]It treats pregnancy like a service, the womb like a space to hire, and too often the child like a outcome of a contract.

[00:14:45]God designed things and they're not in random. From creation, children are meant to come into safety of a covenant family. Marriage, a husband and wife who unite, conceive, carry, and raise child as one family. Surrogacy breaks that unity. It separates conception from marriage. It separates pregnancy from parenthood. And it places a sacred human life inside of financial and legal transaction. It normalizes a system where children can be intentionally separated from the woman who carried them. And while the Bible does record surrogate-like situations like Hagar, it does not present them as ideal to copy.

[00:15:30]And it shows the pain that comes from when people try to produce God's promises through human shortcuts. Yes, infertility is real. Suffering is real.

[00:15:40]But suffering is not a license to step out of God's moral boundaries. So my answer is no. Not because I lack compassion, but because I believe God's design is worth protecting and because children are not commodities, they are imagebearers of God. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you for watching this video. Since 2020, our ministry has reached over 280 million people online. We released over 82 resources in 18 languages and have about 160,000 students in our school and we distribute thousands of books even into prisons and closed nations. But that's just half of the story. We're building homes for vulnerable kids in Brazil, supplying food and hygiene in Mymar, helping refugees in Ukraine, and partnering with missionaries in some of the most dangerous places on earth. If this ministry has blessed you, I want to invite you to partner with us monthly or one time. You can keep making this eternal impact. Let's reach more, serve more, and love deeper. Would you join us today to reach more people for Jesus by being a partner of this ministry? And you can do that by going to pastorblood.org