← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Ep 1171 | Egg Donation Centers Are Exploiting College Girls & Military Wives | Guest: Kallie Fell
01:01:31
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- [00:01]
Ali Stuckey
Who are the men that are renting wombs and buying babies from women in America? What exactly is the dark underbelly of the IVF and reproductive technology industry in the United States? We've got Cali Fell here today. She is the executive director for the center of Bioethics and Culture Network and she is here to answer some of these questions for us today. We are going to talk about this and so much more on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our at Good ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com code ally that's good ranchers.com code ally. Cali, thanks so much for taking the time to join me. For those who don't know, can you tell us who you are and what you do?
- [00:52]
Cali Fell
Yeah. So my name is Cali Fell. I am the executive director for the center for Bioethics and Culture. I'm also the program director for the Paul Ramsey Institute, which our project within the center for Bioethics and Culture. I'm also a perinatal nurse.
- [01:10]
Ali Stuckey
Okay, so tell me about the CBC Network. Those who remember my interviews with Jennifer Law, whom I've had on multiple times, may already know, but there are a lot of people who are new who have no idea what CBC does. Can you tell us?
- [01:25]
Cali Fell
So the center for Bioethics and Culture is an educational nonprofit that was started by our founder, Jennifer Law in 2000. We've been around for 25 years now, and we work in the space of just educating people, educating general public lawmakers on bioethical issues that most profoundly affect humanity and the vulnerable among us. We work in the area of making life and faking life, which we can get into later. But predominantly how we educate is through filmmaking. We have several documentary films now, through podcasts, through writing, through interviews, all kinds of things. So education in the space of bioethics?
- [02:06]
Ali Stuckey
Yes. And can you give us a definition of what bioethics is?
- [02:11]
Cali Fell
Yeah, it's funny, I was sitting last night down for dinner and a gentleman next to me was like, oh, I've never even heard of bioethics. And I have a biology degree and I'm always kind of like dumbfounded by that. But bioethics is really anything in medicine or biotechnological advancement or biomedicine that affects life. One of the most common things when people think bioethics is abortion, for example. But the things that we focus on at our work in the center for Bioethics and Culture is the space of third party reproduction and also recently entered the space, well, I say recently, now it's been, gosh, five years. But on the gender debate. And so anything that's affecting how we treat people, bio life issues and the ethics surrounding those issues.
- [03:01]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. So it's the world of science and medicine and what is actually ethical. I always say that science or technology can tell us what is possible, but it can't tell us what is moral. And when technology takes us from what is natural to what is possible, we as people have the responsibility to ask, but is this moral or is this ethical? And by ethics we just mean like is this right or wrong? Does this fall into to a framework that matches the ethic that I think we all would have, that human life is precious, that it has dignity and therefore we have rights. But there is a big debate about when life begins and when life actually becomes valuable and what rights that valuable person actually deserves. And as you said, that comes up in the abortion debate. But as CBC knows, it's far more than abortion. So y'all are looking at things like IVF and surrogacy too, right?
- [04:08]
Cali Fell
Correct. And anything that's assisted reproduction. So that also includes egg donation and I always put that in quotes because young women are exploited for their eggs and they're not donating their eggs, they're being bought and purchased and so those eggs are sold. So yes. Anything in that. Yes, exactly. Anything in that arena of third party conception.
- [04:30]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. And so tell us how you got into this. You said that you're a nurse and I know that Jennifer Law was also a nurse. But tell me, did you have the same kind of journey as her into this space?
- [04:42]
Cali Fell
No, actually it's kind of a long journey, but I would call it a providential journey. And my focus is always at the center been women's health and the health of the babies that she might Carey. But I actually was one of those people that didn't really know what I wanted to do. I kind of enjoyed a lot of different things growing up. But I found myself in college in a class called Reproductive Physiology. And I was enamored. I loved it. I loved learning about the reproductive cycle. I love learning about men and women's bodies and our reproductive capabilities. I was absolutely fascinated. And so I went on to study reproductive physiology and I have a master's degree in reproductive physiology molecular biology. After graduate school, I was considering going on to become an ob gyn. Something in healthcare, life has a way of kind of making decisions for you sometimes. But I went on to do research in women's health, studying endometriosis. And preterm birth at a medical center in Tennessee. And while I was doing that, I found myself really wanting to be more involved in the lives of women, not just at a lab bench studying these things. So I decided to go back to become a nurse, specifically a perinatal nurse. And that's a nurse that takes care of a woman from, you know, when she's pregnant, through labor and delivery, and then in the postpartum period.
- [06:12]
Ali Stuckey
Okay.
- [06:13]
Cali Fell
So I went back to become a nurse. And during all of this, I actually went to a conference that was not even remotely on the topic of women's health, But I was thumbing through the pamphlet, kind of bummed about who was speaking and what I would be learning. And I found Jennifer's photo and a little bio of her talk and what she'd be talking about. And I was like, oh, my goodness. I have been doing research on pig embryos and doing all of these techniques in animals through my graduate studies. I'm learning about women's health throughout my nursing degree. And here's a woman who is actively talking about some of these struggles that I was internally, like, kind of thinking about as a graduate student, like, should we be doing this? Should we be taking eggs and sperm out of the body and putting them in a dish and then putting them back? Should we be. What is what? These bioethical questions, like, what is right? What is wrong? Just because we can. Should we? But nobody could answer those, you know, professors were kind of progressive, and, well, we can. And I brought it to the church. And a lot of pastors at the time, I don't know. I don't want to talk about this.
- [07:23]
Ali Stuckey
I'm not a scientist.
- [07:24]
Cali Fell
Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I listened to her talk. I was enamored by what the center was doing. I went home, watched the films, and just really wanted to get involved. And I think Jennifer probably thought I was a crazy fan girl at the time. But I, again, through providential timing, moved to California, and that's where the center is based, and started volunteering, using my expertise in understanding, research, studies, and writing, and started working as a volunteer for the center for Bioethics and Culture, and then all while working as a perinatal nurse in California, and then from there came on as a staff writer, and now I'm the executive director. So it's been a really fun journey, and I'm very passionate about the work that we do.
- [08:14]
Ali Stuckey
Okay, let's go to. That's amazing. Let's go to. You said egg selling. Let's call it egg Selling, that's typically what I do. Because I did not realize, maybe I learned it from Jennifer. I don't remember that. It really is a misnomer. And I know you mentioned that these women are getting paid for this, but you said you didn't just say getting paid. You said they're being exploited for their egg. So what do you mean by that?
- [08:39]
Cali Fell
Yeah, so I think you have to start with thinking about what kinds of women are target egg sellers. Right. These are women who are young, typically between 20 and 30, because those are our fertile years. That's when we're healthiest. Our eggs are healthiest. Our egg quality and quantity are the best. And we think about, if we were in the market for something, wouldn't we want a specific type of. We want the best product, and we might want a specific type of that. And so young women, where you might find these women who might need money, college campuses, for example, who might be taking on college debt or have other things going on, are advertised to as a way of making extra money. And these advertisements are really slick. Some of them include that I've seen in the past, probably not now, but you know, free tanning sessions, pay for spring break, and they offer actually large amounts of money for their eggs. And then these women often, too, the advertisements will list a higher amount than what they're often given. Because a woman might answer an advertisement and say, oh, I saw an advertisement for X amount. But then she might find out that she's not quite what they're looking for. Perhaps she's not an MIT grad, or perhaps she's not studying, she doesn't know a foreign language, or she doesn't have a certain pedigree, but she's already in the clinic doors and is intrigued. And ultimately, too, these women, not just egg sellers, but women who go on to become surrogate mothers, they have a good place in their heart. They want to help a family in need. A woman thinks, I don't need my eggs right now. Of course I would want to help a family have a baby. Of course. And so their altruistic intentions are exploited. And then you incentivize on top of that with funds. Yeah. To get out of debt, to pay for college. One woman I talked to and that I interviewed for her, it was to help her mother pay rent.
- [10:48]
Ali Stuckey
Wow.
- [10:48]
Cali Fell
And so.
- [10:49]
Ali Stuckey
So it just sounds like. I mean, it sounds like the song fancy by Reba McEntire. I mean, she's talking about being a young prostitute because her mom is sending her out to, like, help pay their Bills. This is not sex, but it is selling your body for money, sometimes for desperation.
- [11:06]
Cali Fell
Right. And not just your body. You're not just putting your health at risk, but you are in essence as a egg seller, sperm seller. You are giving away your future child. That is genetically, that is your genetic material that will make a future child. And I think that young women don't always think that through.
- [11:26]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. They just think, well, this is my egg. It's not my child. But it will be your child. I know people and I'm sure this person did it from a good place because she was just like a sweet, normal girl. I don't think she was in a desperate situation, but she was very proud and would say on social media how many eggs she's sold, how, or she would say donated and how many people have been able to start families because of what she did. And all the comments were applauding her. Wow, this is so amazing. You're giving this gift. Well, yes, you are. And it is amazing because you are willing to give up your own child to someone else and you have no idea how that child will be, will be raised. I mean, there are just so many layers there. I think it is hard for women to realize because they are so disconnected from the father of that child and who that person will be.
- [12:17]
Cali Fell
And a word on the advertisements too. The advertisements in nowhere on them do they include the known risks or even the statement that we don't know what risks there are. There's no indication that what she's doing is risky. I just spoke with a woman who's actually trying to file a class action lawsuit in Canada who sold her eggs twice and the second was harmed physically by, and is now speaking out and trying to get other women who have been harmed in Canada from donating their eggs. She was, she just talks to me about how she called the clinic with pains, complaints of shortness of breath and other side effects. And instead of talking to a doctor, she talked to a coordinator who just reassured her that that was normal. She actually a physician or a provider of medical care until she was sedated on the table ready to collect her eggs. And so these advertisements, I kind of went in a circle there. But these advertisements are very flowerly. They use very cunning and slick language to get women into the doors of the clinic. And once they're, they're exploited for their eggs, they're put on high doses of hormones and medications that have long lasting side effects. We have a film called Exploitation that just Jennifer produced for the center for Bioethics and culture. And it just tells the story of these women who were harmed, having stroke, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, losing their own fertility. And then that's not. Those are just kind of immediate risks. We don't know what happens to these women long term their fertility, long term their risk for cancer or their children, by the way. Or their children. Exactly. And so they're really exploited. And it's a certain type of woman. And mit, I have to say, in reading recent years, their newspaper, the tech has actually called out these advertisements. And I don't believe that they're allowed to advertise in their newspaper anymore because they've called them out for what they are, which is elitist and racist and eugenic. Because people who want an. An egg from a woman, they want a certain type of egg, they want.
- [14:40]
Ali Stuckey
Her to look a certain way, they want her to have a background. And I've actually seen this. It typically is. I know that gay men are not the only people that are buying eggs from women, but very often journeys are, I would say, especially commercialized and glorified. Today, I see it all over social media and unabashedly, like Shane Dawson, I think that's the YouTuber's name, he went through this with his partner unabashedly talking about picking the egg seller from a catalog that they wanted her to have a certain look, a certain background. There was another couple that we highlighted on the show maybe a year ago who said, you know, we wanted her to have. We wanted the baby to have, like my smile, but have his eyes. And so we had to get a woman who looked like this. I mean, you're literally picking women out of a Rolodex based on these features and purchasing her DNA to create your child. And that's not even the woman that's going to be carrying the child.
- [15:44]
Cali Fell
Right, Right. It's very much like someone had explained to me, like the social, the apps for dating, you know, you're swiping through and finding and finding the woman that you want to be the genetic mother of your child. And you're right, that's in the case of gay couples or single men. They're exploiting two women, the egg donor egg seller and the surrogate mother, who.
- [16:11]
Ali Stuckey
Are two different people. And can you. We've talked about that before, but can you talk about why that is? Is that a legal requirement that the egg seller and the surrogate or gestator have to be different?
- [16:22]
Cali Fell
It's not a legal requirement, but at the end of the last century, Most people were pretty repulsed at the idea of surrogacy because what we were operating from was like traditional surrogacy, meaning that the woman who was carrying the child was also genetically related to the child.
- [16:39]
Ali Stuckey
It was just the mom.
- [16:40]
Cali Fell
Right. And that got really messy, of course. Right. Because women were selling their actual biolog. And so I think it was a strategic move to help disassociate this process. And so to make it a little less messy. It's still fraught with bioethical concerns and is immoral. But now we have an egg seller who is a genetic mother to the child, and then we have the surrogate mother, who, of course, is the birth mother to the child. And therefore, neither can really lay claim to the fact that they're the mother. It's an intentional separation.
- [17:18]
Ali Stuckey
Mm. Because there's a bond that's created there. And we even know that surrogates do create that bond with the baby they're carrying, even when that baby is not genetically theirs. But it's less likely for there to be that strong bond when the baby isn't genetically hers. Quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor, and that is Carly Jean Los Angeles. You guys know how much I love cjla. I am wearing them almost every day. I love their denim. I love their basics line. It's all made in the US I still wear the stuff that I bought from CJLA from over five years ago. That's kind of their trademark. It's very classic style that looks good through all the trends, looks good on you at every season of your life, in every season of the year. So if you get a capsule, a capsule closet from them, some pieces that you can mix and match, that's going to last you a really long time. Plus, Carly and her family, they are the real deal. They love Jesus. They love this country, and that's how they conduct their business too. So it's just a win all around. To get your clothes from CGLA, go to kyliejean losangeles.com use code ALI B for 20 off your first order. That's carlyjean los angeles.com code ALI B. So going back to the egg selling and the egg harvesting, just the process. You said that those women, they have to be injected with a bunch of hormones because they their bodies have to be put into ovulation. If we knew anything. Most people don't know anything about women's cycles, but we release one egg a month sometimes. I guess women can do two eggs a month. That is very rare, but it's One egg a month. That's our body's mechanism. And if that egg is not fertilized, it disintegrates the endometrial L. That's how it's supposed to. That's how it's supposed to work. But in these situations, they're not going through their natural cycle. They are hyper ovulating so that there are multiple eggs, sometimes dozens of eggs, ready to be retrieved. So they mature in the follicles, they're ready to be retrieved, and that is when they are harvested. Again, we're talking about one egg a month naturally versus 12, sometimes upwards more.
- [19:44]
Cali Fell
The woman that's doing the class action in Canada was over 40 eggs. Right?
- [19:49]
Ali Stuckey
40 eggs at once.
- [19:50]
Cali Fell
Because she was part of. She didn't know about this. A guaranteed program for the intended parents, who was a gay couple. They were part of a guaranteed program, meaning that there would be guaranteed a baby at the end of their journey. That's the fertilities language, not my own.
- [20:06]
Ali Stuckey
Oh my gosh.
- [20:06]
Cali Fell
And so she was super responsive to the hormones. They put an increased dose than even what the standard protocol was to extract more eggs from her. And. Yes. And it's dangerous.
- [20:22]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. It also, you mentioned all of the side effects that it could have. It also apparently increases the chances of having breast cancer. And just anecdotally I know women who've been public about their IVF journey and that it's out of nowhere a healthy 32 year old woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.
- [20:38]
Cali Fell
Yeah. These women have no history of cancer. They have no. Because they're selected for all of this because people want healthy eggs. But yes, we know several women, one who actually is featured in exploitation and in our film Maggie's Story. We actually just were back in touch with her because she was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma, which is for women over 50 who have a genetic predisposition to this. And she had none of that other than her egg donation. But her cancer has returned. And so we're just. But it absolutely has a risk for long term health outcomes. And it's deplorable to me because we're not tracking these women. There's no national database that tracks these women who sell their eggs long term, which we do in the cases of organ donation. We track people who donate their organs long term to follow their health risks, to meticulously what happens to them. We don't do that to these women. Once they donate their eggs, once the commodity has been captured from their body, they are lost in medical history and we're doing a huge disservice to women.
- [21:56]
Ali Stuckey
Yes. And why, like, what do you think the reason is?
- [22:01]
Cali Fell
Oh, I think it's because we'll see these increased rates of cancer. I think that these cancers that came out of nowhere, we're going to see that women who sold their eggs, who were put on high doses, healthy women who respond really well to hormones are going to have increased incidences of cancer. We're going to see long term health risks and then the fertility industry is going to be held accountable, hopefully. I mean, I think that's why I don't think fertility industry wants to be regulated. They don't want to have to track these women and make this data accessible.
- [22:34]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. Is there any information, any data about the children that are conceived and then born via egg seller or sperm seller?
- [22:46]
Cali Fell
Yeah. Outside of birth rates? Not really. Outside of tracking live birth weights or live birth rates. Yeah.
- [22:54]
Ali Stuckey
And birth weights, because typically are actually smaller babies and born earlier than normal naturally conceived babies.
- [23:02]
Cali Fell
Beyond that data, there's very little tracking. And I'm hopeful that as these children who are born from these arrangements get older, like Olivia Morell and others, they'll speak out about their experiences. We have a huge population of donor conceived adults now who are speaking out about not having access to their donor's information. And so I'm hoping the same will happen too in the cases of children who are born from surrogate mothers. The problem there is there's no genetic link and they're often not on birth certificates. So if parents are honest about their birth story, they might not ever know they were born from a different mother.
- [23:43]
Ali Stuckey
Yes. Which is a problem in itself. You're also depriving that child not only to their right to their genetic parents, but also their right to their medical history. At least half of their medical history. I mean, every time I make an appointment for my children, especially if it's a new patient, they ask about parent history. You have to fill out grandmother, grandfather. And obviously it's one thing if this child is adopted, you try to get as much of that information from their genetic parents as possible. But in this situation, you are purposely cut off from that person. You may never have any contact with the genetic mother of your child again, if you conceive this child through egg selling.
- [24:23]
Cali Fell
Right, Right. And a new a study came out. Actually, I was just reviewing this before I came in that I think it was 2014 that showed almost half of people who sell their gametes go on to regret it.
- [24:38]
Ali Stuckey
Gametes, that would be eggs or sperm?
- [24:39]
Cali Fell
Eggs or sperm. Yeah. And I just am thinking back to that college student who's enticed by the financial gain and her altruistic motives are exploited. And just to think that half of them regret that or wonder where their children might be.
- [24:52]
Ali Stuckey
Where are their kids? And you said that they're getting these advertisements. Where are they typically getting advertised to? Is it on social media?
- [25:02]
Cali Fell
Yeah. Now with the advent of social media, it's, it's, it's, it's there.
- [25:06]
Ali Stuckey
And I see. I don't know if these people are being paid, but I see a lot of influencers who. Their mom influencers. And all of a sudden they're on this surrogacy journey. I just saw Ms. Rachel, who I know a lot of people love, seems like a very sweet person and a very good mother. She just welcomed a child via surrogacy. And it just adds to this narrative that surrogacy. I don't know if they also used an egg seller or anything, but that surrogacy is this altruistic, you know, benign, even benevolent process that goes on. But it's. But it's not. Would you say that surrogates are exploited in the same way that egg sellers are?
- [25:48]
Cali Fell
Absolutely. I think a different population is often targeted for surrogate mother than an egg donor. They're two very different populations. Surrogate mothers, man. When they. And it seems like more and more are contacting me daily with their horror stories. But surrogate mothers tend to be women who, again, very altruistic. They want to help. They had easy pregnancies. They typically have small children at home or adolescents at home, but they've had easy pregnancies, and they've had a friend or someone else they know that struggled with infertility, and they want to give the gift of life. They want to help families. And often I found, too, in our research that military wives are another big target for.
- [26:42]
Ali Stuckey
Surrogacy.
- [26:42]
Cali Fell
Right. From fertility agencies for surrogacy because they're at home with small children. They're often hard to employ because they're moving around a lot with their partners in the military. And this is a way that they can contribute to their household and also help another family with this. This idea of duty to serve. And. Yeah, so definitely exploitive in the same way.
- [27:08]
Ali Stuckey
And they're also pumped with hormones. Surrogates have to be pumped with hormones as well in order to carry the child, because you have to be in the same part of your cycle that you would be if a naturally, you know, fertilized egg was going to implant into your uterus. So your endometrial lining has to be just right. You bas to look like you just ovulated in your body. Right. In order for that to work. And that's an artificial process. We don't know all the consequences of that.
- [27:35]
Cali Fell
Yeah, exactly. We do know studies are showing. We did our own study at the center for Bioethics and culture looking at 96American women who had their own spontaneous conceptions, their own deliveries, and a surrogate pregnancy. And we do know that surrogate pregnancies are high risk in nature. They set a mom up to have increased rates, C sections, preterm birth, placental abruption, placental abnormalities, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, all of these things. The list goes on and on. And in the United States, you know, we really are behind in our maternal morbidity and mortality. And one of the biggest things is preeclampsia and high blood pressure in women. And I just find it odd that we still puddle and we still promote surrogacy when we know that surrogate pregnancies are more likely to have these same adverse outcomes that we see in our records for that are causing our terrible rates of maternal morbidity and mortality.
- [28:47]
Ali Stuckey
Next, just a reminder to sign up for Share the arrows. Get your tickets today if you have not already. We also have all kinds of VIP packages that include like a really cool dinner night before, which I'm super excited about. It's going to be like really, really nice. You're going to get to meet some awesome people. And we've got some other VIP packages that you can choose from as well. Or you can buy your standard ticket. Bring your friends, bring your sisters, bring your mom. This is for the Christian woman who wants to be edified, equipped, encouraged to worship alongside, fellowship, alongside like minded Christian women from all over the country. October 11, Dallas, Texas. Go to sharethe arrows.com you said that there are d two different kinds of people. If I understand, it's like the egg seller. They typically want them to be young and thin and beautiful, maybe rich. Although like you said, that's just not always the case. But I have heard, I remember I was listening to one couple on a podcast, a gay couple, say that they wanted someone who went to an Ivy League school. And so depending where you are, a bunch of Hollywood celebrities. They've got their own clinics and special ways of doing things. They've got their own exclusive catalogs, but they just want someone who looks good, who maybe isn't inherently unhealthy, who Seems to have good genes, who's young, Whereas for the surrogate, it doesn't matter what they look like. And it's actually the. Maybe in some cases, the poorer they are, the better because the more desperate they are. And do they have a history of, you know, full term pregnancies and births themselves? And so, I mean, it's like the handmaid's tale. But the very same people that support it say that Christian conservatives are like the handmaid's tale because we don't believe in killing babies inside the womb. It's crazy. It's crazy how people see. They don't see that connection.
- [30:37]
Cali Fell
They don't. And you're. You're. You're absolutely right. The. The genetics of the surrogate mother don't play into the decision for. She just has to be a proved breeder.
- [30:49]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah.
- [30:50]
Cali Fell
Which is how we treat our cattle.
- [30:52]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah, exactly. Well, that's what it reminds me of, a cow. It reminds me of just like an animal. And I know that, you know, Brittany, I forget her last name, but I had her on and she was introduced to me by Jennifer, and she was the surrogate that carried for the two men. She got diagnosed with cancer. They said, we don't want anything to do with you or this thing anymore. And she had to deliver early. The baby died. And they wanted to start over. They didn't want to honor their child. They didn't want to bury him. He was discarded like medical waste because they were angry at her that she got diagnosed with cancer and had to deliver the preterm baby. That is how you treat cattle. And people need to know that. That might not be every single case of surrogacy, but that is what happens. And I hear a lot. Well, they're consenting, so why does it matter? Why should we be talking about this? This. What would you say to that?
- [31:43]
Cali Fell
Oh, that's a good question. A lot of people give me that consenting argument.
- [31:49]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah.
- [31:49]
Cali Fell
This is even for egg sellers. Oh. What woman can do with what her body, what she wants? Well, one, we don't know what we don't know. Again, we don't know in egg selling what we're doing to these young women. Short term, long term, we just don't know. So you cannot say. Sure, you can say. You can say there are no known medical risks, which is often what's told to them. But that doesn't mean that there are no risks. That means that there are no known risks because nobody's looking. The same can go for surrogate mothers. As I said, Studies are starting to show that these are inherently risky procedures. Ivf, surrogacy, they're hard on a woman. That's a lot of reasons why women stop doing IVF because of the emotional toll and the physical toll. But they're not being. When I speak to these women who are harmed, the harms are glossed over. They're not truly, I don't think, given informed consent. There are conflicts of interest at every step. It's very interesting that the same person that's warning her of the harms or might be harms or telling her what risks there might be, there have a vested interest in her signing up to do it. They have a vested interest in her womb and her eggs. And so it's glossed over also. You know, a lot of surrogate mothers are offered lawyers during the contract phase of, before they. They have the embryo transfer and they're signing the contract. But that lawyer is typically picked for, paid for by the agency or the intended parents. There's just a lot of invest. A lot of messy conflicts of interest there. And the other thing is, we don't always get to do what we want with our bodies. I cannot go on Craigslist and sell myself as a slave. I cannot sell my organs. I cannot smoke anywhere that I want to. There are limits to what we can do with our body. So I absolutely hate that argument that just because it's her body, it's her choice. And then we could also extend that to the baby that she's carrying. These are the unconsenting subjects here. These are the unconsenting parties that are so often glossed over in these contracts. And when we talk about it, even in my interviews, I find myself talking a lot about the harms that have happened, whether it be emotional or physical harms to the surrogate mother and her family. And then I have to pause and think like, wait a second here at the center of this is a baby.
- [34:16]
Ali Stuckey
This is a child who's not consenting. Didn't actually be a part of this.
- [34:20]
Cali Fell
Yes, exactly. Who has a right to know and be loved by as parents. Yes. We do not have a right to a child. We don't have a right to do with what our bodies, what we want to do. Those arguments break down when you really look under a magnifying glass.
- [34:34]
Ali Stuckey
I hear all the time, but I had to use a surrogate. I. We had to use a surrogate. I had to do ivf. That's how I had to have children. Okay, but like you said, no one has A right to have a child by any means necessary. Just because you want to have a child, that's a good desire. And like whoever is saying that you're probably going to be an awesome parent, but you can't steal a child. There are all kinds of ways that you cannot legally or morally go obtain a child. And so if we can acknowledge that, that some methods of obtaining a child are moral and some are not, then we should apply that to how we conceive them, how we reproduce them, how they're carried and they're, I mean, people for some and really hate when you bring up the reality of adoption that there are thousands of kids who are earthside who need parents. And it's just like, that's so ridiculous. Everyone should have a right to their biological child. But that's just not true. Again, the any means necessary approach to fulfilling your desires is not a Christian one, that's for sure. But you can also see just from a pragmatic standpoint how it leads to really bad places.
- [35:46]
Cali Fell
Yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking, and I want to back up a little bit. We talked about Ms. Rachel and we talked about influencers and talking about the groups of women who are surrogate mothers. And you're very right on that. Surrogate mothers who have been once or twice and have kind of aged out of the process do go on to become working for the clinics to recruit other women to become egg or to become surrogate mothers. And I'm just thinking of the story of a woman who contacted me a few weeks ago who just had the surrogacy, pregnancy from hell and the whole thing and how she was recruited by family members who worked for the agency. And so I guess to people like that, I just want to say stop it. Stop glorifying this. Stop making this mainstream and popular and beautiful. It's. It's not.
- [36:44]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. You know, I read something talking about like how the babies are affected by not just egg selling and all of that, but even just ivf, even if it's a husband and wife having their baby through ivf, and we've talked about this several times on the show, but this was a new fact that I didn't know that if you go through IVF specifically for male infertility, so his swimmers ain't swimming, they're just not mob, for whatever reason, they're unable to get to the egg to conceive. If you do IVF for that reason, the child is something like 60% more likely to have severe autism. And that makes sense because I'M actually reading this book right now about women's cycles and how the birth control pill affects women's cycles. And there's a part in there just talking about how our bodies go through this natural selection process to make sure that the woman is release, releasing the strongest egg. Not every egg gets to mature every cycle, just one egg does. The best egg your body deems, and not every sperm is mobile enough, quick enough, can endure long enough in order to fertilize that egg. It's got to be the best sperm and the best egg. And then the endometrial lining that you know is there after ovulation is actually supposed to be like the first endurance test for that fertilized egg. It's only the fertilized egg that can get through atrial lining to the uterus, get that blood source. And as you all know, I'm not educating you, just everyone out there is fascinating to me that, okay, that's the, that's the, you know, one that's going to make it to implantation. And it's so amazing. But when you curtail all of that, the body's natural, natural selection process, and you say this sperm that really has no business reproducing because it's not supposed to be like it's his body's way of telling him this sperm shouldn't create offspring. When you do that, there are problems. Now, all those children are valuable no matter what their diagnosis is. But you see, like, when we try to get the get around the natural process, we are doing things to the people that we're creating, Right.
- [38:57]
Cali Fell
Well, icsi, which is one of the technologies that just introduces one sperm to the egg rather than just putting an egg in a petri dish with sperm, and the best one who gets in, who cracks the zone of pellucida and all of that. But icsi, where you actually are choosing the best of both and doing it, does have, it's supposed to be better outcomes. But studies are showing, like you said, that outcomes are actually worse outcomes, including more rates of perinatal death and other congenital deformities and that sort of thing. Yeah. So when they're actually showing that outcomes are actually worse in those types of technologies where you're just picking one sperm.
- [39:36]
Ali Stuckey
With the egg, putting them together, because that journey that the sperm is supposed to go on is actually like, important for the genetic choosing that your body does. It's so fascinating. Again, when technology takes you from what's natural to what's possible, we have to ask, is this good? Like Is this moral? Is this beneficial? I want to get more into the, like, gene editing and genetic stuff in just a second. But before we leave, surrogacy, you said a stat that I thought was really disturbing on Nicole Shanahan's show, and I've also seen it on X, that there was a 2020 study that showed that, that at least 34% of intended parents, sometimes the acronym is IP for surrogates, are predominantly single Asian males in their 40s living in Asia, like India, China. Is that right?
- [40:27]
Cali Fell
So there was a study done recently in Fertility and Sterility, one of the magazines of, or journals of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine that looked at gestational surrogate pregnancies from 2014 to, I believe, 2022. And 32% of surrogate pregnancies were from intended parents outside of the United states, so international. 32%. And then of that 32%, they were predominantly. Yes. Single men. That could be the. It didn't delineate single versus couple, but men, predominantly men from Asia over the age of 40.
- [41:17]
Ali Stuckey
Okay, got it.
- [41:18]
Cali Fell
Does that make sense?
- [41:19]
Ali Stuckey
Yep, it does. Like a large percentage of that. About. So one third of, of intended parents are from abroad, and most of those are these males from Asia.
- [41:31]
Cali Fell
Exactly. Which is close behind by France and Spain, where surrogacy is also illegal.
- [41:36]
Ali Stuckey
Okay. Wow. My goodness. And do we know, like, are these, Are these single males? I said single males. Do we know if they're single males?
- [41:44]
Cali Fell
Yeah, I went back to review that. I don't think we do know that. I'd have, I'd have to look back again at the article. It, from what I saw, it just says males.
- [41:51]
Ali Stuckey
Okay.
- [41:52]
Cali Fell
Yeah.
- [41:52]
Ali Stuckey
Which is still troubling.
- [41:53]
Cali Fell
It's still very troubling. And so, you know, I actually spent a great deal of time in the last. In early 2025. We're still in early 25, but January, trying to create, like, what an ideal law for, for me be right. Because I don't. I'm a realist. I would love to see surrogacy and the whole fertility industry just blown over and, and, and cut off. I don't, I don't see that happening. It's a growing industry. It's a billion dollar industry. Projections show that it's not stopping now. We're targeting young women to freeze their eggs. Not just give away their eggs, but now you can freeze them. We're marketing it. We're changing. I don't think it's going anywhere. So what would I like to see? Well, I would like to see us model Italy. I want to close our borders. Let's stop one third of these gestational surrogacy arrangements. Let's stop them right now. Let's close our borders. No one can come to the United States to hire a surrogate mother. And I also think the inverse should be true, that we should not leave the United States and exploit other women in other countries to be surrogate mothers either. So I would like to see be laws around that, that we just close our borders.
- [43:06]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah, no more of that kind of surrogacy tourism. Also birth tourism, because you have sometimes surrogates, but people coming here just to give birth, whether they are actually the mother of the child they're bearing or they're a surrogate, they come here to give birth. So their child has dual citizenship, Chinese American citizenship. And I've talked to a lot of people who have actually been nurses, L and D nurses who have dealt with this and. Yeah, you. You've dealt with that. Okay, tell us about it.
- [43:35]
Cali Fell
Yeah, no, I. I've had. I've taken care of patients who move over here near the end of their pregnancy or come visit near the end of their pregnancy and deliver here in. Well, not here where we are, but in California, which actually, if you look at that study even further, it goes down to break down what states those surrogate women are from. And I think it was somewhere in 76% of those are from California. Why is that? Because I think the proximity to Asia, and then also we are the wild, wild west of big fertility. Anything goes in California. You can have a baby by any means necessary, doing whatever you'd like. So I think that's the reason. But, yeah, working in a hospital, I see that happen. Where women come over from predominantly Asia, in my own experience, to have their children.
- [44:30]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah, my goodness.
- [44:32]
Cali Fell
And it's kind of sad. I often spend a lot of time. I don't work in a hospital that does that currently, but I used to spend a lot of time with those women because they often don't have anyone. There's no support system. They've come over by themselves, and they're in the labor room by themselves. So I often spend a lot of time with them. Very sweet women. But they're here so that they can have a baby that has United States citizenship.
- [44:56]
Ali Stuckey
My gosh. All that stress has an effect on her long term. Also has an effect on the baby. Like, people just don't want to consider that how a baby is gestated, how baby is conceived, and how a baby Is born like that all matters. It matters to all of us.
- [45:11]
Cali Fell
It matters a great deal. And there was another study that just came out this week, and it was kind of one of those, like, dust studies. Like, we spent, we spent time and money researching that. Like, isn't this obvious? It just showed that the bond during pregnancy impacted the first year of life for a child and the connection between the mother and child for that first year. So if she had a positive pregnancy experience and felt really connected to the child, then that connection only strengthened in the next year. And the inverse was true, that if she wasn't as connected, then it had a detrimental effect that first year of life. And I just thought in my head, okay, surrogate pregnancies, again, we have, it is a whole body experience. That woman is, is just her whole entire body. Even if they say that they don't connect with that child or they realize that it's not their own. Most women, we find in studies do bond with that child. They do care about that child.
- [46:10]
Ali Stuckey
It's yourselves.
- [46:12]
Cali Fell
And now more than you know, we've learned about microchimerism now. And it's such an intricately linked relationship and process. And in that baby, of course, the sounds, the smells, the feelings it feels, all of these things, it's just, it's incredibly interconnected. And we know this. We know this. I work again at a hospital in California and maybe you've had children, you've heard of the baby friendly initiative, right? Which is an initiative put forth by the World Health Organization to promote breastfeeding and bonding. And we talk about the golden hour and how important that is that right after birth that that baby goes to the mother it knows, because that golden hour is so important for, gosh, not just breastfeeding, but breathing and temperature regulation and hormone, just all of these things. And. But we don't care if it's a surrogate mother. We don't care about baby friendly initiatives. That doesn't matter, right?
- [47:05]
Ali Stuckey
No, we take that baby away and give him to strangers. And people say, well, you don't remember your birth, it doesn't matter. Well, there are a lot of things that affect us that we don't remember. I always tell the story of my, or maybe I've told it once before, but my oldest, she was born via C section and she, they didn't give her to me. They put her on the little table that, you know, measures the breath. And they said, oh, her breathing's not great. And I just said, please, can I hold her? And so they let me hold her. And they wheeled us back up to the room and then the little, the NICU guy, he comes in to wheel her away with the little clear bassinet. They take her and I say, can you just measure her breath one more time? Whatever the technical term is, the medical term is respiration. Right. And so she had been on my chest for probably five minutes and then they laid her on there and they're like, oh, nevermind. It was perfect. And so her breath was perfect. She just, she really just needed mom at that point. She needed the home that she knew. And I know that's not the case for every child. Sometimes they do need extra support. But she needed that skin to skin. She needed the heartbeat that she knew, the smell that she knew. And even if those babies aren't genetically related to the mom that's carrying them, the woman that's carrying them, that's still the only home they've ever known. That's what they're aching for after birth.
- [48:29]
Cali Fell
Yeah, yeah.
- [48:31]
Ali Stuckey
And it has a really big effect that people just don't realize. Last sponsor is range leather. I've actually got my range leather pursed right here by my feet. I use it all the time, I travel with it. It's really high quality, it's really easy to clean. And so I use it with everything because it also matches everything. That's a beautiful thing about leather. This is really well made. All of their items have a lifetime guarantee. Whether it's their wallets, their belts, their custom hats. It's just the kind of quality of product that used to be normal in the US but now is really hard to find. This is another Christian family owned company that is making all of their stuff off in the U. S. This makes for a great Mother's day gift. Great Father's day gift or just gift for yourself. Check them out. All of their products are amazing. Rangeleather.com Alli you'll get 15 off when you visit my landing page. That's rangeleather.com Ally, you mentioned that India, France and Italy have all outlawed commercial surrogate.
- [49:45]
Cali Fell
Yeah, yeah. Italy just recently closed its borders to intended parents within Italy, leaving Italy to exploit women in other countries. So it's always been the case that surrogacy is illegal in Italy. They can't hire a surrogate mother there and do these contractual arrangements in Italy, but they could leave. They could come to the United States and hire a surrogate mother. The Ukraine, Mexico, wherever. But recently, unfortunately, just this year, at the tail end of last, Italy closed its doors both ways. So it became a criminal offense for intended parents to leave Italy to hire a woman. Yeah, good. That's what I want to see. Here in France, they view this as slavery, modern day slavery. And so they don't allow surrogacy on the grounds that it's slavery. I often say there's enough about surrogacy that somebody can find something they don't like about it. So whether you think it is deeply regressive and exploitive, whether you are against it because of the harms it causes on women and children, maybe you're against the financial component, but there's enough about surrogacy you can find something not to like about it. And so I think, you know, India, for them, they closed their borders after children were being left and abandoned because they weren't wanted by the intended parents. And so they. They actually allow surrogacy for. It's very specific within. Within India, with couples in India, they. But they don't allow certain people to come into India to exploit their woman.
- [51:30]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah. And that is something that has happened. Same thing with Ukraine, poor countries. And of course, with the war between Russia and Ukraine. There were all these babies that were abandoned over there. Parents couldn't come get them after they were born. And people just need to realize this is the moral, ethical risk that we are taking every time we engage in some kind of transactional experience. It really is human trafficking. And yeah, there's some consent involved, just like there's consent when it comes to prostitution. But if you've got a desperate woman who is being told, this is what you have to do, or this is what you need to do, is it really consent? And really none of this is consent. If you are never told the adverse effects, it's not informed consent. Actually, you're saying yes to something you don't realize you're saying yes to. We talked the other day on this show about this new technology or a new company that is of course out of California, Silicon Valley, that claims that it is helping children win the genetic lottery every time. So it's basically just taking the best, best, best quote unquote, from the mom and the dad, creating a child, making sure that none of the embryos that are created have these kinds of hereditary diseases or weaknesses. You can pick eye color still, you can pick gender, which is pretty normal actually for a lot of people who use ivf. But I guess this technology takes it to the next level. And this person actually said, who owns this company, that sex is for fun, like IVF is for bab. That just is like so shocking and disturbing to me. So disturbing to me. But people don't realize that this eugenics is very much par for the course when it comes to so much of our reproductive technology industry.
- [53:23]
Cali Fell
Yeah, the very start of this, the very start of assisted reproductive technologies is eugenic to the core. So the very first donor, sperm donor on record was done by or donation was done by Dr. Pancoast. And he used a medical student. And I think the story goes that it was the best looking medical student that he had to inseminate a woman without her knowledge while she was anesthetized. Oh my gosh. She thought she was being intimidated with her own husband's sperm. But Dr. Pankost had realized that he was shocked, shooting blanks, nothing was there. So he then used his medical student to inseminate this woman without her knowledge. And the best looking, that's an important point and aspect because it is so eugenic. The founder or developer of IVF, Dr. Edwards, was a part of a eugenics society. And I find it incredibly disturbing that I did a little digging on him when I got into this space that on Luis Brown, who was the first test tube baby in the 70s on her 25th birthday, he gave a speech or spoke about it and said that infertility, and I'm loosely quoting here, I probably won't get every word right, but infertility or IVF was more than just about infertility. It was about finding out who was in charge of conception and was it God, God or was it scientists in the lab? And his conclusion was that it was him, it was scientists that are in charge. And that's just deeply alarming to me. And so yes, from the very beginning, this science, this technology has been eugenic. And then of course we see as we've spoke at length about egg selling, certain pedigree is selected, a certain person is selected. And then now we see it in a technology that you're talking about pre implantation genetic testing which can be offered to couples or single people. Whoever is using IVF and or surrogacy as an add on feature to their because it's sold and it's marketed. And I actually I had a very interesting conversation with a woman in England who, who is an embryologist and has studied this and is in this space. And she agrees that it's just market, it's a marketing, it's the new hot thing, it's the new femtech. Right, femtech. Everyone wants the next new cutting edge technology thing. And this is it like egg freezing, but it's actually not improving outcomes. It's incredibly eugenic. I think I saw that on X. All the buzz that that article was getting and that. That new technology. Yeah, that was getting. And. And we just need to call it for what it is. It's eugenic.
- [56:36]
Ali Stuckey
Yep, absolutely. And I'm so glad that CBC is talking about this, because not enough people are, although I do think that more people are, and then just a few, like, just a few years ago. It's not that I think that. That, you know, obviously Jennifer was talking about it. Katie Faust is talking about it. You've been working in this. But I do credit Jennifer a lot. And I'm not like, oh, it's my show. I'm not saying that. However, that conversation, I will say, had a domino effect. And I can't take credit for it because it was all Jennifer's expertise and my audience who got so engaged. But that was one of the first conversations or discussions about this, this on any conservative podcast at all. I think it was maybe in 2021. And after that, I've seen more and more, thank God, conservative commentators, podcasters, influencers, whatever, say, hang on, this is weird. This is weird. And there's something about this that I think is worth investigating at the very least. And we hope to get the Trump administration looped in on some of those risks. But I'm grateful for what y'all do. Where can they find the movies that you've helped produce? Because we didn't even get into how gender also like it. Everything that you were saying, sorry. Now I'm like, I. I thought about this, but you were talking about the lawyers that are hired, the doctors that are handpicked to approve these women, to sell their eggs and surrogacy and all of that. It's very similar to the gender industry, which is, a child can walk in, say, I want to be the opposite sex. They handpick the endocrinologist, the psychologist, everyone who they know is going to be affirming of that child so they can make thousands of dollars off of sterilizing and butchering that child's body. The parallels to this are just, like, uncanny. And it's a lot of the same people, right?
- [58:29]
Cali Fell
Yeah. And not only parallel, but cyclical. Because when you sterilize and you put a child on puberty blockers and you're setting them up to have to use assisted reproductive technologies if they decide to conceive children later, if they go that route, these children as young as 8, younger are asked about fertility preservation, which is highly experimental. 1 and then 2. What 8 year old knows how many children and what kind of family they want to have? If you would have asked me that, I would have said I wanted nine children. You know, it's just, it's crazy. But you're setting this child up for yet another industry.
- [59:07]
Ali Stuckey
Yeah, I remember it was Jennifer who said that they're creating lifelong slaves to the medical industrial complex. And that's exactly what is happening. And you know, making a lot of money off of it. Anyway, y'all produced a documentary kind of about this, right?
- [59:22]
Cali Fell
Yeah. Well, we have three, a trilogy of films on the space of gender medicine. We have a trilogy and some about assisted reproductive technologies. There's one on egg donate egg selling surrogate mothers called breeders. There's one on anonymous gamete donation. Those all of our films are completely free. Free on YouTube. Our YouTube channel is BCNetwork. Org. And then we have so much information on our YouTube channel. Slews of interviews that I've had with those who are donor conceived surrogate mothers, egg sellers. And that's what really we need people to tell their story. And if this has been you, maybe people are listening and they've been an egg seller or a surrogate mother and they want to tell their story. I want to hear from them. So yeah, we can be found@cbc-network.org awesome.
- [60:16]
Ali Stuckey
Thank you so much. And they can follow you too on X. It's Calfel. Callie, thank you so much for taking the time to come on.
- [60:24]
Cali Fell
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
- [60:27]
Ali Stuckey
Yes.