Nothing Simple About Surrogacy

The new issue of Newsweek explores “The Curious Lives of Surrogates” — though, frankly, the cover headline, “Womb for Rent,” is far more grabby. Regardless, the piece details the “thousands of largely invisible American women have given birth to other people’s babies,” and among them is Dallas’ Stephanie Scott, who, in 2002, started Simple Surrogacy on Greenville Avenue after discovering that carrying someone else’s baby was, well, devastating once it came time to actually turn over the newborn to her parents. “When she was born, they handed her to me for a second,” Scott tells the magazine. “I couldn’t look, so I closed my eyes tight, counted 10 fingers and 10 toes, then gave her away. I cried for a month straight.” –Robert Wilonsky