What do you do with a defective product? Return it. What about when the product is a baby? Because babies are harder to “return,” one couple decided to abort the baby after becoming concerned that the “product” would not be up to their standards. 

The Daily Mail shared the story of Marty and Melinda Rangers, an American couple who had two children via surrogate mothers. As the article reveals, Marty and Melinda also had a third child through a surrogate, but they opted to terminate the contract — and terminate the baby’s life along with it.

Because of “busy careers,” the Rangerses put off having children. After early retirement and a move out of the country, they did not think medical resources were reliable enough to try in-vitro fertilization, a reproductive technology that could increase the likelihood of conception in the waning years of fertility. Instead, they opted to have an embryo transferred to a surrogate. 

The surrogacy industry is largely unregulated, a veritable Wild West of business ethics and human moral standards, as the Rangerses soon discovered. They went through an agency in California and interviewed a potential surrogate who “seemed reliable on paper and good to talk to over the phone.” The surrogate then underwent a psychological and medical screening, after which she began to carry Marty and Melinda’s child. 

Excited at the prospect of their child being born and deeply financially invested (Marty and Melinda say the surrogacy costs about $100,000 — “$30,000 going to the agency, $65,000 going to the surrogate, and another $5,000 in legal fees”), they kept in contact with the gestational mother through phone calls. Additionally, for “peace of mind,” Melinda liked to monitor the woman on social media. 

Through Instagram, Melinda saw the surrogate drinking what appeared to be a shot of alcohol. The couple confronted the surrogate, who claimed the drink was only water. Unsatisfied with the explanation, Marty and Melinda requested that the surrogate undergo an elective abortion around 20 weeks of pregnancy. For context, 20 weeks is the midpoint of pregnancy, at which point the child is fully formed, the mother often looks visibly pregnant, and studies show the baby can feel pain (such as would result from being dismembered in an abortion). 

Reflecting on the experience, Marty said, “It was a very tough decision, but the trust had been broken and we were unsure what else this woman was capable of.” Thanks to reporting in the Daily Mail, we, the readers, now know that Marty is a man capable of ordering the death of his own child feared to be less than perfect. 

Things could have ended differently for Marty and Melinda, as other parents who have paid for a surrogate can attest. For the past decade, stories have been coming out of surrogate mothers pressured to abort babies for genetic abnormalities or because of multiples in the pregnancy. Several surrogates have refused to end the life of an innocent child and gone public with their stories.

Marty continued, “For our second child, we focused on judgement of the surrogate more intensely and we got them to commit more explicitly that they would follow medical advice on pregnancy, be it vaccines, bed rest, diet, or whatever it may be.” To ensure a good end product, the couple shelled out for organic food and lifestyle amenities for the surrogate.

Our culture has rejected the original premise of marriage, yet we wonder why our institutions do not make sense. Marriage was not historically about the happiness of the married couple but about the stability of the family unit, a legal means of tying the children to their biological mother and father. Of course, there have always been deaths, tragedies, and complex situations that meant children were not always born into the home of their biological parents. Adoption and infidelity are likely as old as the institution of marriage itself. Yet, until just recently, there was coherence in the marriage contract: Two people assumed responsibility for the children of that union. 

Just as marriage was not until recently thought of in terms of adults’ happiness, so having children was not until now generally considered in terms of adults’ fulfillment. Many people struggle to question the ethics of surrogacy because they see it as a good desire on the part of parents to bring new life into the world. But is it in the best interest of the child?

Perhaps chilling stories like the Rangerses’ aborted baby will cause more people to question the surrogacy industry and the real and heavy toll it takes on human lives. For their part, Marty and Melinda Rangers advise couples considering surrogacy to do “lots of research and think[] of things that could come up down the line.” First, let’s ask if this is the line we want to go down.