5 Takeaways From Wired’s Wild Surrogacy Feature

 

By Stacy Lee Kong

 
 

Image: Georgia Tech Alumni Association Angel Network

 

Content warning: this newsletter contains mentions of pregnancy loss and disturbing details of anti-Black racism.

If you Googled Cindy Bi last week, here’s what you’d learn about her: “Bi is an accomplished Early-Stage Venture Capitalist based in San Francisco, California, with a track record of backing 14 unicorns, 12 of which originated from seed funding. She currently serves as a General Partner at CapitalX, where she specializes in investing in pre-seed and seed-stage companies in sectors like Enterprise and SaaS within the San Francisco Bay Area. Two highlights of her career include founding partner roles at A/Z and co-founding Spartan Camera.” 

Pretty standard as far as tech bios go, and certainly nothing internet-breaking. I mean, the claim that she’s invested in 14 unicorns (i.e., start-ups valued at more than $1 billion) is a hard one to fact-check—though honestly, that feels kind of normal for tech bios, too. There was one small hint of what was to come; the third entry in her work experience section said ‘Chief Advocacy Officer’ at Baby Leon, a ‘role’ she started in 2024. It’s not a company; it’s her deceased child, and the job description veers toward the unhinged (“Seeking Public Injunctive Relief https://babyleon.org/ https://tinyurl.com/BabyLeonLawsuit64Pages: False Advertising, Wrongful Death, Violation of Antitrust, Violation of Yelp Law; Fraud, Unfair Competition, etc.”). But aside from that, she appeared to be your average Silicon Valley venture capitalist. 

This week, however? A very different story. 

On Wednesday, Wired published a 6,000-word feature about Bi’s surrogacy journey. Or, more accurately, the harassment campaign she’s currently waging against one of her surrogates after the fetus being carried by the surrogate died in utero. The story, which is now the number one search result for Bi’s name, is well-written, extremely compelling—and disturbing as fuck. (If it hasn’t been circulating in your group chats and on your social media feeds, I’m going to need you to pause and go read it.) 

It also brings up some very scary, big-picture societal stuff that’s worth paying attention to. Like, for example, the ethics of surrogacy, Big Tech’s interest in the practice, the mainstreaming of ‘fetal personhood’ as a concept, and even the class and race dynamics of this case in particular. So, that’s what I’m going to explore in this week’s newsletter. 

1. We definitely need to talk more about the ethics of surrogacy

I know people who have pursued surrogacy and were really thoughtful about the process and the power dynamics of that relationship, so I don’t want to make a blanket statement. And yet… if nothing else, this story really lays bare just how skewed those power dynamics can become. Writer Emi Nietfeld lays it out really clearly at the beginning of the story: the surrogacy sector is largely unregulated (only New York State requires agencies to be licensed), surrogates are largely uninformed about the health risks of carrying a genetically unrelated fetus (the risk of adverse maternal effects is about 8%, four times higher than “naturally conceived pregnancies”), ‘intended parents’ (as they’re referred to in this space) don’t have to disclose their own medical histories, and—of course—there’s the finances of it all. “A stark power differential means that intended parents often have the means to file lawsuits and wage yearslong campaigns,” Nietfeld writes, “while surrogates who feel screwed are forced to rely on free legal help and GoFundMe.” 

And all of that plays out here. A quick overview: Bi and her husband, Jorge Valdeiglesias, connected with their surrogate, a former pro athlete and single mom who Nietfeld calls Rebecca Smith, through a California-based agency, Surrogate Alternatives Inc. (SAI). SAI is well-regarded in the surrogacy space, in part because it enforces policies that are intended to protect surrogates. For example, the agency thoroughly vets intended parents, including requiring psychological testing; there’s always a detailed contract that lays out the terms; and surrogates’ reimbursements are held in a third-party escrow. (In Virginia, where Smith is based, it’s illegal to pay someone to be a surrogate, but you can reimburse them for expenses.) But these safeguards didn’t actually protect Smith, who began experiencing complications at 26 weeks. Earlier in the pregnancy, she’d given Bi and Valdeiglesias power of attorney so they could make decisions for Leon (and I’d love for a lawyer to tell me if this is standard!), but at this point, Bi began trying to get access to Smith’s medical records, sharing personal details about her online, and generally trying to exert control over everything she did—all in the name of ‘protecting’ Leon, of course. Then, when he died in utero at 29 weeks, Bi ramped up, pursuing legal action against Smith, SAI, and “other parties,” emailing the HR department at Smith’s job to allege she’d committed fraud and even reporting her to the FBI. Important note: Bi’s lawyer, Elizabeth Sperling, bills $1,275 per hour, while Smith had to find a lawyer who’d handle her case pro bono. 

But it’s not just about the financial disparity—Bi also published Chat GPT-composed social media posts from Leon’s perspective and, perhaps worst of all, sent a photo of Leon’s corpse to Smith’s seven-year-old son. So, this case also forces us to grapple with the overarching idea that it’s possible to commercialize childbearing, and the consequences of doing so. I see direct links to the recent case of Adriana Smith, the Black woman who was declared brain dead, but whose body was kept animated in order to incubate her fetus until he was developed enough to survive outside of the womb. Earlier this year, I wrote about how we don’t need to look to The Handmaid’s Tale to contextualize reproductive injustice when it would be more accurate to look at slavery. Those exact racial dynamics are not at play here, because Smith, and most surrogates in the U.S., are white, but there is a similar dehumanization. Some Silicon Valley intended parents refer to surrogates as “wombs” and “carriers,” not people. They judge prospective surrogates on their perceived suitability for breeding—their health and temperament, how easy they are to influence or control. 

2. The simultaneous desire for control over surrogates’ bodies and lack of care for their physical health is deeply disturbing 

Also: these wealthy intended parents always have all sorts of rules and requirements for their surrogates—take these vitamins, eat these foods—but they’re only concerned about her body to the degree that it provides a safe environment for their child. In fact, they not only lack care for her actual well-being, they never even consider the risk they’re posing, only how a surrogate’s body or behaviour might jeopardize their (precious, pure) genetic material. 

For example: people develop gestational diabetes because the placenta produces hormones that cause insulin resistance. However, the biological parents’ DNA—and particularly the father’s genes—‘build’ the placenta, which means it’s super important to understand both parents’ family history. In this case, Bi’s mother and sister both developed gestational diabetes and remained diabetic post-pregnancy, while Valdeiglesias told Nietfeld that he has an aunt whose water broke early, just as Smith’s did. But they didn’t disclose this information to Smith before she agreed to carry their child, because they didn’t perceive any of that as a risk to the fetus and they didn’t care if it posed a risk to her.

Similarly, the couple hired a second surrogate to carry a fetus for them, this one a girl who’s now 11 months old. Bi characterized that pregnancy as easy and smooth to Nietfeld. In fact, the surrogate, Chelsea Sanabria, had gestational diabetes and both placenta previa and placenta accreta. During delivery, she hemorrhaged, losing 5.4 litres of blood. She needed an emergency hysterectomy to literally save her life. Imagine how little you have to care about another person to characterize that as ‘easy.’

3. Silicon Valley’s obsession with surrogacy is actually pronatalism

This is maybe the juiciest story that touches on Big Tech’s obsession with surrogacy, but we’ve actually seen that interest surging for a while. As early as 2019, The Economist was reporting on the trend, noting that, at fertility clinics, “requests [were] growing more quickly than for egg-freezing or IVF (albeit from a smaller base), and [had] risen 500% year on year.” By that point, tech giants like Google and Facebook had started offering employees $20,000 toward the (admittedly astronomical) costs, which started to help dismantle stigma. Plus, the story noted, this was a group of people who were primed to consider this approach because of who they are and how they work. “People in Silicon Valley are also interested in ‘life design’ to streamline their busy existences,” the story notes. Why not extend that to childbearing? As we’ve seen in other spaces, tech founders and funders do tend to try to innovate their way out of perceived inconveniences, from writing and thinking to now, pregnancy.

But in recent years, Silicon Valley hasn’t just embraced surrogacy, pouring their personal funds into what they consider a more efficient or effective way of building their families, they’ve also begun promoting fertility, both philosophically (think, Elon Musk and his many children, or Sam Altman’s statement that he wants a big family) and literally (Peter Thiel has backed a genetic testing start-up that purports to predict an embryo’s intelligence). Which gets at a key point: it’s not just having lots of babies, it’s having ‘perfect’ babies. White ones, ideally, who are able-bodied, intelligent, attractive. Which is really just eugenics. 

4. The racial dynamics that are at play are super disturbing, but they’re not the ones I expected

Based on, um, the world, I assumed it would be common to see wealthy, white intended parents purchasing the reproductive labour of poorer, racialized surrogates, and all of the power dynamics that would entail. This is a factor globally, but it seems that most U.S.-based intended parents choose white surrogates. (Sidenote, I definitely want someone to study the reasons for that, because I’m curious if it’s because they perceive white surrogates as ‘better,’ like some kind of reproductive Made in America label.). But there are still racial dynamics to consider, even when the surrogate is white. For example, at one point while holding Leon’s body, Bi expressed pleasure that he was “a white boy, just like his dad.” So, you know, immediately yikes. 

Even worse, when Bi began looking for reasons to blame Smith for Leon’s death, it quickly escalated from questioning whether Smith was proactive enough when seeking medical attention to a racist fantasy, ‘confirmed’ by psychics, that Smith had caused damage to the fetus by engaging in “rough sex” and “lots of unsafe sex,” possibly with Black men. She also speculated that Smith’s son (whose dad is Black) had somehow harmed the fetus. Maybe, Bi speculated, “Smith had let her ‘adult-sized’ son sleep in her bed, where he’d probably kicked her in the stomach.” The idea that whiteness is desirable is bad enough, but the conjuring of a ‘scary’ Black man that ‘corrupted’ the sanctity of Smith’s womb and the adultification of her biracial son is especially fucked up.

5. I don’t think the story quite knows how to handle Bi, and that’s not great for anyone

I think Nietfeld did a great job of reporting this story, and weaving a compelling narrative. Truly—I read all 6,000 words in one sitting. But where the story falters for me is the way it portrays Bi and her behaviour. From the display copy to the social media sells to the framing of the anecdotes in the story, she’s presented to the reader as a grieving mother who deserves sympathy. She is the protagonist, which means there’s lots of space given to her feelings of sadness, confusion and anger. And importantly, when she says or does something objectively wrong—like, you know, saying horrifically racist things about Black people; infringing on another person’s right to medical privacy and bodily autonomy; pushing anti-abortion rhetoric, including using language around fetal personhood; and literally, openly pursuing revenge against someone with much less privilege than her—it’s presented clearly, but without context or comment. 

At one point, the writer even allows Bi’s husband to position all of her behaviour as necessary for her own healing. As Nietfeld writes, “Bi’s husband focused on stabilizing the family, a move he credits with saving their marriage. He blamed the hospital, not Smith, but told me that the litigation is ‘her grieving process.’ He tried to stay out of the legal stuff so that Bi couldn’t blame him too.”

I mean—pardon me???

Typically, my philosophy is that we can trust readers to understand subtext and we don’t need to spell every single thing out for them. But there’s a danger in allowing people to say morally wrong, factually incorrect and frankly, downright dangerous things without acknowledging them as such. That’s not being biased; it’s actually just telling the truth.

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Culture, HealthStacy Lee KongCindy Bi, Jorge Valdeiglesias, Adriana Smith, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel