This surrogate thing has been going on a long time.
Wasn't it about 5,000 years ago that Sarah told Abraham to go make little Ishmael with the handmaiden Hagar?
There has been nothing but family trouble ever since.
The correct term for Hagar (as well as for Bilhah and Zilpah, the mothers of four of the sons of Israel) is “slave concubine.”
That term doesn’t fit the mother in this case, because she didn’t have sex with the man. I think “baby seller” would be an accurate description, except that she did not, ultimately, sell her child. I guess that makes her an “unmarried mother.”
I wonder if she had to give the money back. She was paid for her “expenses” and her “pain and suffering,” it being illegal to outright buy a child by plain contract ... but on the other hand, she’s in breach of contract.
Maybe further litigation will sort it all out.
Exactly the illustration I was thinking of.
I think that was a cautionary tale: people,don’t do this. It’s headaches for cenuries.