Surrogacy in Nigeria: Privilege Disguised as Autonomy

On Surrogacy, Capitalism, and the Cost of Biological Obsession

If you're a woman, you have no fertility complications, you can carry a child to term, and you decide by yourself that you don't want to do that and you want to use a surrogate instead, your decisions are valid…

…I have a womb, I don't have any fertility complications, I'm perfectly healthy, but I'm still going to use a surrogate…

~Ife

At first, I wasn't going to say anything. Mostly because this is a highly sensitive topic but also because I wanted to be sure I understood every angle.

But now I'm ready.

The woman in the video is a rich, 42-year-old Nigerian woman who got married recently. In the clip, she talks about how she will use a surrogate even though she’s perfectly healthy and has no fertility complications. She says society has taught women to believe that “if you don't bleed for it, then you don't deserve it.”

There are many things wrong with this entire video, but let’s start with that narrative.

I agree. Society absolutely glorifies suffering, especially when it comes to women and motherhood. Look at how Caesarean Sections are treated in Nigeria. The shaming is loud. So yes, this idea that women must suffer to earn the title “mother” is a real, harmful belief.

But here’s the thing, if your response to that is: “Well, I won’t suffer, I’ll just pay someone else to,” then what have we really solved?

Because even if you’re not bleeding for it… someone else is.

You might say, “Oh, but surrogates are grown women making informed choices. They’re getting compensated.”

Sure. But is it really a choice when poverty is the biggest motivator? When their survival — their ability to feed themselves, to pay rent — depends on it?

Especially in a country like Nigeria, where women are underpaid, healthcare is fragile, and maternal mortality is still high?

While writing this essay, I tried to find out how much surrogates in Nigeria are typically paid. The figures I came across ranged from ₦1 million to ₦2.5 million and even that isn’t consistent or reliable. The entire industry is shrouded in secrecy, which, to me, makes it even more ethically murky. There’s no clear regulation for something as serious, life-altering, and potentially dangerous as surrogacy in this country.

And sure, ₦2.5 million might sound like a lot at first glance. But put it in context: it can’t even cover one session’s tuition at Babcock University. You can’t rent a decent apartment in a safe neighborhood in Lagos with that. When someone is willing to go through nine months of pregnancy, with all the risks, bodily changes, and recovery, for that amount, it’s not because they’re empowered. It’s because they have no better option.

And for the people who say, “Oh, we can make it ethical by paying surrogates fairly or giving them huge sums of money,” here’s my response: you can’t ever pay enough for a human’s body. Humans are not commodities. The body is not a marketplace.

A kidney donor doesn’t get paid to donate their kidney. Because it’s illegal. Because it’s unethical. We’ve all agreed that selling your organs crosses a moral line. So why is it that when it comes to the womb, it suddenly becomes up for debate?

Why is every other organ off-limits, but the womb is negotiable?

It’s not about the money. It never was. It’s about what we’ve decided is okay to buy. And if we’ve reached a point where someone’s womb can be rented because you can afford it, then what are we really saying about poor women’s bodies?

Because let’s be honest, would a financially secure woman with other career options choose to carry someone else's baby for nine months?

Pregnancy is not like chowdeck, or glovo. You don't get to order a surrogate and a baby because you have the means to. It’s not a luxury service. It’s not an alternative to “inconvenience.”

Choosing not to carry your own pregnancy when you’re fully capable of doing so is your right. But exercising that right by outsourcing it to a poorer woman is not autonomy.

Autonomy is not a free pass to exploit poorer women in the name of choice.

Which brings me to my last point: We need to stop glorifying biological parenthood to the point where it becomes an excuse for ethically murky decisions. If you're truly not interested in being pregnant, and you have no medical reasons not to, there are other ways to become a parent that don't involve turning another woman's body into a rented space.

I wrote about this a while back:

And I get it. A lot of people have a deep, almost obsessive urge to have a child that shares their DNA. But when that urge becomes more important than ethics, consent, or class dynamics, we have a problem.

Surrogacy might sound like a feminist option on the surface, but in a world built on inequality —especially here in Nigeria — we can’t ignore the fact that it often relies on the suffering of poorer women.

So no, it's not autonomy.

It's not empowering.

It's not bold.

It's just privilege and capitalism and the idea that everything can be bought.