In last weekend’s edition of the New York Times Magazine, Alex Kuczynski, the author of Beauty Junkies, writes about having a baby by surrogate in “Her Body, My Baby.” In her late 30s, Kuczynski couldn’t get pregnant. Over the course of several years, she tried in vitro fertilization and miscarried multiple times. Finally, she found a surrogate mother who would carry, as she puts it, “the product of my egg and my husband’s sperm.” It’s a story about the lengths a woman will go to have a baby — but it’s also a story only a wealthy woman could tell, as Kuczynksi and her financier husband spent over $100,000 to make her baby dreams come true. (The surrogate was paid $25,000 for the use of her womb.) In the article’s comments, readers are tearing Kuczynski apart, deeming her a “disgusting… spoiled brat” and a “rich, self-obsessed snob,” while far fewer others are commending her for telling her story at all. So, what do you think? Has the high-tech business of baby-making gone too far? Or is having a baby by any means necessary a 21st century fertility reality?
