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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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underclass doesn’t want to be “just wombs” professionally for 30 years.

Is being a professional surrogate mother for Western gays and infertiles not a popular job in poorer countries, such as Ukraine?

Apparently the best Eastern European place for surrogacy has moved from Ukraine to Georgia, due to the war. A quick search leads to, for instance, this, where at least one woman came from another Central Asian country by lying to the husband she doesn't like, and at least some women are having up to six babies for the agency.

I can't tell based on a short search how popular it is, but the four to six number sounds about what I would also expect from a woman who was into motherhood, and had found a husband to support her. I've heard of exactly one woman in my personal sphere who had 20 children, and then shortly died, leaving them to raise each other. You can get families like the Duggars by some combination of good health, religious belief, and media attention.

I'm not so much saying that there aren't women who are willing to have a basically normal amount of children, some of whom they sell. Just that having 20 and leaving them at an orphanage is too far.