Surrogacy is built around a contract, but pregnancy is not a normal commercial performance. A contract can assign financial obligations, expectations and parentage. It cannot make the physical reality of pregnancy happen anywhere except inside a person’s body.

That is why disputes over medical decisions become so difficult. Intended parents may have profound emotional and financial interests in a pregnancy, yet the surrogate remains the patient whose body is undergoing treatment. Courts have to confront where contractual promises end and medical consent begins.

The racial dimension matters too. Black women’s reproductive autonomy has a long history of being constrained by institutions that claimed authority over our fertility, pregnancy and motherhood. Modern surrogacy should not recreate a system in which payment is treated as permission to override a woman’s bodily decision-making.

The law needs clearer rules before a crisis, not after. A fair system can protect intended parents without pretending that signing a contract transfers ownership of a pregnant body.