(Wired) – When her son died in utero, a venture capitalist went to extremes to punish her surrogate.

More than a dozen big tech companies provide five-figure subsidies to any employee who needs or wants to outsource gestational labor. A shocking number of techies now believe growing a baby can be a straightforward business transaction.

But intended parents and gestational carriers—IPs and GCs, as they’re somewhat dehumanizingly known—are often uninformed about the dearth of regulation and completely unprepared for what can go wrong. Only one state, New York, requires agencies to be licensed. Although America is the world leader in surrogacy, it’s also the developed nation with the highest maternal mortality rate and one of the highest stillbirth rates, a situation described by many as “a public health crisis.” Compared to natural conception, carrying a genetically unrelated fetus more than triples the risk of severe, potentially deadly conditions, a statistic surrogates are rarely given. IPs do not always have to disclose complete medical information, including histories of certain conditions that may harm their GCs. They don’t have to be honest about how many kids they have, why they are hiring a surrogate, or how many other surrogates they have simultaneously pregnant. Do you really know who is carrying your child—or whose child you are carrying? (Read More)