When Your Body Is Your Business

Surrogacy in the United States is a multi-million dollar industry in which well paid professionals seek out specially qualified women to fill the difficult job of being a surrogate. Surrogates enter lengthy contracts in which they agree, in intricate and intimate detail, to provide a service for significant compensation—as a group, surrogates in the United States are paid well over $22 million per year. This Article argues that surrogates are professionals in this for-profit industry and are required to report surrogacy compensation as income. As a corollary, surrogates may deduct most of their surrogacy-related expenses as business deductions.

Being a surrogate is a highly personal service and the expenses the surrogate incurs—such as for maternity clothes or medical care—are typically treated as nondeductible personal expenses, but when your body is your business, the personal is business.