As Texas lays the groundwork to restrict commercial surrogacy in the next legislative session, some surrogates and their families fear lawmakers will make it harder for couples to use these agreements to build their families.
This year, state lawmakers, with the support of anti-abortion advocates, have amplified anti-surrogacy rhetoric, raising concerns that such arrangements needlessly destroys embryos and strips women who serve as surrogates of their bodily autonomy.
Some state senators have signaled support of limiting commercial surrogacy by banning foreign nationals from using Texan surrogates. The Texas GOP included in their platform this year a ban on foreign nationals using commercial surrogacy and IVF, the main way for surrogacy to occur.
The battle over surrogacy in Texas reached a flashpoint earlier this month after an Alaskan surrogate, McKenna West, fled to Dallas to petition a court to give her custody of the baby she carried. She accused the couple of forcing her to have an abortion, which the couple has denied, and the surrogacy agency of not providing her an attorney that adequately negotiated her desires in the contract.
Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened on her behalf and anti-abortion groups platformed the case, which is still ongoing, as an example of how surrogacy can be unethical for surrogates and the babies they carry.
“The contractual nature of surrogacy agreements denies women, who are at a significant power disadvantage, the ability to give proper consent to terms,” said Kirstin Wallace with the Center for Bioethics & Culture Network, a California-based organization that supports a global ban on surrogacy. “Surrogacy at its core is the renting of another human’s body, where the health and welfare of the surrogate mother are often overlooked and disregarded.”
Center for Bioethics & Culture Network was the only advocacy group that Texas’ senate health committee invited to speak during a July hearing about surrogacy.
In interviews with The Texas Tribune in the weeks following the explosive pushback against surrogacy, surrogates and families who had children from surrogacy have shared that these arrangements have risks but aren’t as rife with problems as state leaders have made them out to be. They see surrogacy as a medical treatment and at times, the only way for couples to have a child after years of mentally and physically draining infertility.
They said there’s opportunities for Texas to sharpen laws to ensure intended parents and surrogates know their rights when entering a contract and that both parties are only subject to the laws of the state where the contract was executed.
They also say that the state should work on ensuring that all surrogacy agencies follow best practices such as matching surrogates and intended parents with shared values — such as agreeing on how religion would play into medical decisions and courses of action during medical emergencies — and providing independent legal representation for surrogates.
But ultimately, they say lawmakers shouldn’t outlaw surrogacy — which accounted for 657 births in Texas in 2025 — because of how important it is for couples who have no other way of building their family.
“It really would be so devastating if they wouldn't allow surrogacy or they wouldn't allow IVF, because there are so many women who want to be mothers, who should be mothers, and who would be great mothers, and because they have a medical condition they would not be able to,” said Angie Koriakos, a Dallas mother who had her child through surrogacy.
Ronda Young: A surrogate to a foreign family
Ronda Young, a Dallas resident, has been a teacher for the last 16 years, a mom for the last 19 years and an aunt for even longer. At home and at work, kids play a big part.
“When people ask me about me, I usually talk about my students, my son, my family,” she said.
After being a surrogate three times for couples that could not conceive, she added surrogacy to the list of ways she describes herself. “It's one of the greatest parts of my story,” she said. “It's a blessing to be able to be a blessing to other people.”
Young’s first family was from Denmark and after several video calls to vet them, she was touched by their arduous infertility journey and how it had tempered their hope of ever having kids. They were grateful and cordial, maybe a little cautious, she said. They made sure Young’s wishes were followed, like having her sister in the delivery room, and the couple visited her the day after she gave birth.
She said she never felt like they were trying to exploit her for reasons other than to have a child they so desperately wanted.
“There is always a clear understanding that this is my body; these are my choices,” she said.
Foreign surrogacy has come under scrutiny in recent years after a handful of high profile cases prompted concerns that foreign nationals were using American surrogates to have multiple U.S.-born children. Those have included a case involving a Chinese billionaire who had dozens of children via this procedure and a case involving a Corpus Christi surrogate who was matched with a Chinese couple in California who had many children by surrogacy and were later arrested on child endangerment charges.
Young said such cases are not the norm, especially with good agencies, legal representation separate from the intended parents, and standard contract arrangements.
Well before she became pregnant with the couple’s baby, the surrogacy agency she was working with connected her to an attorney — separate from the couple’s attorney — who walked her through the contract. Her attorney negotiated her medical wishes, such as seeing doctors in Texas and choosing which hospital she would go to. The contract ensured she would be paid if she had to take time off work, had medical insurance and did not have to pay for doctor’s appointments or anything related to the baby. It also pre-determined who the baby’s parents were, ensuring that she would not be financially liable for the baby after birth.
A piece of art that one of Ronda Young’s surrogates, PG, made for her when he was 3 years old and a photo of them together. PG and his family live in Washington D.C., and Young stays connected with the family. “It just kind of protects me as a surrogate, so that I’m not one stuck with a baby at the end of the pregnancy, and two protects [the intended parents],” she said.
Young says she trusted her surrogacy agency — Massachusetts-based Circle Surrogacy — because they followed best practices such as making compatible matches between intended parents and surrogates; providing separate representation for their surrogates; and ensuring that she and other surrogates undergo multiple psychological evaluations. She knows not all surrogacy agencies are the same and she encourages surrogates to look up agency reviews online and on social media, join surrogacy Facebook groups, and connect with other surrogates to hear about their experiences.
After her first experience, she repeated the process with two more couples in Washington D.C. and in the U.K. She keeps close contact with both families and has visited them in recent years.
“It's always so sweet, being able to see the baby come out and hear the first cries, and then looking right over at the parents to see the joy on their face. It's an indescribable feeling. Like I really made this family,” she said.
“It's not just a transaction. My family loves them, just like they love my family.”
Angie Koriakos: Reconciling Christianity with surrogacy
Angie Koriakos can sympathize with both the surrogate and the intended parents in the high-profile custody battle involving Rumi playing out just a few miles away from her.
As a Christian, she does not believe in abortion for herself nor does she agree with the decision to terminate the pregnancy involving Rumi, but she also understands why Rumi’s biological parents would feel like their rights were violated if they had hoped the surrogacy contract would protect them.
“Ultimately, I believe this match should never have happened,” Koriakos said. “The intended parents, surrogate, and agency all had a responsibility to ensure their beliefs were compatible before the match was made.”
Koriakos’ Christian faith played an imperative role in her decision to have a child through surrogacy. She relied on her faith when she was diagnosed with a uterine condition that caused hemorrhaging and difficulties getting pregnant. She never blamed God when she underwent eight rounds of failed IVF. And, she asked God for clarity when other Christians questioned if surrogacy was playing too much of God’s role.
“It's so easy in the Christian community to be like, 'This is wrong… This isn’t God’s will.' I really hope that this kind of opens up people's eyes to seeing this is God working, God works through the surrogates, and God works through these stories to reveal his glory,” she said.
Finding people who had those shared Christian values made Koriakos feel safe in moving forward with surrogacy.
Koriakos interviewed multiple surrogacy agencies and chose Egg Donor & Surrogate Solutions, a Frisco-based agency, after connecting with a staff-member over their shared views on faith. Through the agency, Koriakos was matched to a surrogate, Salena. After a video call, the two agreed to the partnership, and from there, their relationship blossomed.
“We share the same birthday. We both love Friends. But more importantly, we both love the Lord,” she said. During the pregnancy, they exchanged text messages everyday and Salena would share photos of her baby-bump.
Conservative groups say that the West case shows that these contracts strip surrogates of their control over their own medical decisions. Koriakos believes that it's important for surrogates and intended parents to share fundamental values and state these during contract negotiations to ensure that both sides will follow through on the agreed terms. In Koriakos’ contract, both parties agreed that pregnancy termination was not an option, reflecting both women’s personal beliefs on abortion.
When the baby was born, Koriakos and her husband named her Eliana, meaning “God has answered.”
“I just remember thinking, did this just happen? I was crying. I just couldn't believe it,” she said. She described carrying Eliana to Salena, unable to put into words how grateful she was for her, and said, "Look at what you did.”
“She really is such a testimony to what God can do. What God can do with the help of IVF, with the help of somebody like Selena who's willing to carry her for us because it really would not have happened otherwise,” said Koriakos.
Katie Blackwood: Can I have another baby in Texas?
In the span of one year, surrogacy became the only way for Katie Blackwood, a Wichita Falls native, to have the family she had always imagined. Shortly after turning 28, she found out she had ovarian cancer. A few months later, she met her husband, Seth, and in the same year, she had to undergo a hysterectomy and her ovaries were removed.
“This wasn't me taking the easy way out, so I didn't have to go through the morning sickness, the childbirth, all of that," said Blackwood, a former NICU nurse. “This was my only option.”
Going in, she was uncomfortable with the idea of their surrogate being a first time carrier and feared that the surrogate would become attached to the baby. But after a few calls with Soria, Blackwood trusted that Soria would respect the surrogacy agreement and agreed to their match.
Blackwood described the surrogacy process as an overwhelming experience that involved a complicated legal and medical process. Having a Texas-based agency recommended by their fertility clinic and an attorney to explain the contract helped make it more manageable.
Bennett celebrated his first birthday last month. When Blackwood saw him for the first time in the delivery room, the years of sadness from fertility struggles and from not being able to experience pregnancy went away.
“I had my baby there. He was screaming. He was healthy. He was little, but he was definitely mighty and feisty, and he still is,” she said.
This year, Blackwood's cancer returned, but this has not stopped her from wanting to grow her family. Although they now live in Montana so they can be closer to her husband’s family, Blackwood is planning to have another child through surrogacy in Texas because it’s where their embryos are stored and they plan to go through the process with the same Texas agency. But, it’s unclear how easy Texas will make it for her.
Not only are lawmakers signaling that they want to restrict commercial surrogacy, the Texas GOP, the majority party in the state Legislature, has in their platform a ban on third party egg and sperm donations. Because of Blackwood’s hysterectomy which prevents her from using her own egg, these restrictions would be a double blow to her hopes of having another child.
“Having cancer with a kid is hard, but it is like he is my biggest blessing, and he gives me the reason to wake up every day and keep fighting,” she said.
Blackwood is not against laws that protect the rights of intended parents, surrogates, and babies but fears that the state could go too far in its restrictions and ultimately make it difficult for couples with no other option to start their families.
“I hope that doesn't make it more difficult for people to become carriers or push people away from being a carrier because there does need to be people that can carry. It's such a gift to people that can't,” she said.
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This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
