Chinese social media reels over young woman's illegal surrogacy case

A 22-year-old Chinese woman's account of how she was lured into the country's illegal surrogacy industry before suffering a miscarriage went viral on Chinese social media this week and raised heated debates over women's rights and social inequality.

Surrogacy is banned in China, and authorities have vowed to severely crack down on illegal practices, including the buying and selling of sperm, egg and surrogacy services.

The incident comes as Chinese authorities grapple with how to increase the country's birth rate as more young couples put off having children or opt to have none.

China's population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023 and Beijing in October rallied local governments to direct resources towards fixing China's population crisis to create a "birth-friendly" society.

Zhang Jing, 22, told state-backed Phoenix TV magazine that she donated her eggs out of financial desperation and then agreed to "rent out her uterus" to be impregnated for a total of 30,000 yuan ($4,152).

If she "successfully" delivered the baby, she would be paid a total of 240,000 yuan. At five months pregnant, she experienced severe complications and had to have an abortion.

Zhang's story amassed more than 86 million views and 10,000 comments on Chinese social media platform Weibo, with the hashtag "#2000s-born Surrogate Miscarriage Girl Speaks Out#."

The majority of comments strongly opposed surrogacy. Some warned that legalising surrogacy in China could lead to increased competition that would lower compensation and further devalue women.

"No woman could escape this if surrogacy were legalised," one user wrote, while another said, "Legalising surrogacy would drive down prices and commodify women."

Zhang's story ignited calls for a more thorough crackdown on illegal surrogacy by authorities, with some commenters warning that allowing the black market to continue to operate could even normalise human organ trafficking.

"Life should not be traded as a commodity," one user wrote. "If this extends to the sale of organs, it will only get darker and darker, and women will have no future."

The incident comes a few weeks after a 28-year-old pregnant woman who acted as a surrogate in China's southwestern city of Chengdu was allegedly abandoned by her surrogacy agency.