‘Surrogate’ Lawyer Files Opinion

I’ve always considered it a cruelty of male-dominated society that some women have to sell themselves to a john or a husband to pay bills. Still, we have laws against the renting of a body, specifically the female sexual part. Why isn’t it equally prostitution to rent out the womb for surrogate motherhood?

The unhuman women who bear a child for charity are the grossest distortion of the species known. They are . . . denying their children a real mother, a real father, a family of brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, family history, identity. We may not all celebrate our roots, but they are ours and that’s all the difference.

MARK NICHOLS

Beverly Hills