Women's Health, Your Way

Ask & Search With Clara

Welcome to a new standard for women's health answers.

BODYTALK / Wait, We're Still Doing the Surrogacy Shaming Thing in 2026?

Wait, We're Still Doing the Surrogacy Shaming Thing in 2026?

Wait, We're Still Doing the Surrogacy Shaming Thing in 2026?

So Meghan Trainor recently welcomed her third baby, and when announcing the baby's birth, the singer revealed that the baby was born via surrogate. 

Cue the opinions of the masses. Because any time a woman makes a choice around her own life, motherhood, and body...well, that's ripe for public criticism, right?

A few of the comments on Trainor's post include statements like "surrogacy shouldn’t be a thing. it is not ok to exploit women for their wombs" and "poor baby and mom. This is so dystopian and unnatural". One commenter asks: "How have we, as a society, come to normalize this?"

To which I ask: How have we, as a society, come to normalize being so judgmental of women and the reproductive decisions they make?

Trainor doesn't owe the public answers, but she does provide a bit of context.

"It wasn’t our first choice, but we had endless conversations with our doctors on this journey, and this was the safest way for us to be able to continue growing our family," she tells PEOPLE. "We are forever grateful for that option."

A lot of people are assuming that Trainor, who many people speculate is on Ozempic, turned to surrogacy to avoid pregnancy weight gain. We don't have the answers as to why exactly Trainor went the surrogacy route. We also don't deserve them. 

But what we need to remember is this. Trainor has written about suffering PTSD after delivering her son. Maybe that's a "good enough" reason for her to pursue surrogacy for some people, but here's the thing: We don't get to make those decisions. It doesn't matter if we deem her reasons "vain" or "valid". Because at the end of the day, it's not our body, not our baby, not our business.

 
 

More from BODYTALK

There's something about tradwife-adjacent content that feels strangely addictive. I come across posts in the vein all the time, and I can't seem to just scroll away from them. Not... Read more
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is freezing her eggs and this feels like a really big deal. Not because she’s the first public figure to share that she’s doing this because of course... Read more
As a millennial woman who grew up in the era of magazine covers featuring freshly postpartum celebrities to glorify the "bounce back", I've never liked the idea of "getting your... Read more
Hayden Panettiere was only 36 years old. She was a mother to a young child. She seemed poised for a comeback. And now, she's gone. The actress died on August... Read more
I’ve never watched Vanderpump Rules, so I don’t know the full range of Stassi Schroeder’s lore. Yet even without all the context, I’m watching her new show, House of Stassi…and... Read more
When Anne Hathaway dropped her pregnancy reveal, the story quickly became about the expectant mom's age. And okay, fair — at 43, Hathaway's ability to get pregnant is noteworthy. But... Read more
It seems like everybody is talking about the Lindsay Clancy case, with so many women absolutely glued to the coverage. Of course, this is an incredibly layered story that touches... Read more
It's no secret that social media is breeding ground for lots and lots of strong, often contradictory, frequently baseless messages about what is and is not healthy, especially where food... Read more
By now, you've all seen shots of the viral "NO INFLUENCERS" sign that was put up in a Nantucket shop.Of course, the sign has elicited a lot of backlash. Some... Read more
There's a very famous woman who has been making major waves recently...and I can't help but reflect on what a complicated issue this truly is.A few years ago, we started... Read more