Commercial surrogacy in the United States, defined as paying a woman to carry a pregnancy to term via embryo transfer, operates with few federal protections for the women involved, according to a yearlong investigation by CBS News published on September 13, 2026. While some sources describe the U.S. as a primary destination for commercial surrogacy, the industry lacks an official national tally of births. Industry professionals estimate approximately 10,000 surrogacy births occur annually in the U.S., yet no federal agency tracks these events or the number of surrogates hired by individual parents.
The investigation highlighted cases where surrogates reported meeting intended parents only at delivery or discovering they were part of larger groups of women carrying children for the same client. In one instance, a surrogate named Maria Castellanos carried two children for Silvia Zhang and Gujun Xuan, an Arcadia, California, couple who had at least 25 children through various surrogates. Castellanos and 16 other surrogates for the couple stated they were unaware of the scale of the family being built. Following allegations of child abuse in May 2025, 21 children were removed from the couple's home; at least five more surrogate-born babies were later taken into state custody in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
Legal experts and whistleblowers noted that current laws primarily focus on establishing parental rights rather than regulating the number of surrogacy contracts a person can hold. Only New York requires surrogacy agencies to be licensed. Data from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology indicates that between 2014 and 2020, U.S. clinics reported 40,177 embryo transfers. Of these, 68% involved U.S. parents, while 13% involved parents from China.
The legal landscape creates specific challenges for the families participating in the industry each year. Because laws vary by state, a surrogate may have no inherent parental rights to the child she carries, which can lead to legal disputes if the intended parents face criminal investigations. In the case of Zhang and Xuan, two surrogates in Virginia unsuccessfully attempted to keep the newborns they delivered after the couple’s arrest, facing breach of contract lawsuits instead.
What happens next depends on potential legislative changes at both the state and federal levels. In California, which serves as a primary hub for international surrogacy, legal professionals are calling for updates to laws that have not been significantly amended in 15 years. The investigation into Zhang and Xuan remains active as they fight for custody of the children currently in state care.