Thanks for pointing those things out with meticulous care- I too thought it extremely irresponsible to takes those quotes out of context as Benfer did to twist their meaning. Reading the article itself (which I did online, without the pictures) I thought it was really brave to delve into some deeper and darker emotions that the author encountered. Perhaps if people can't deal with real human emotions- or object to an author relaying them honestly and prefer them sugarcoated they should stay away from anything in the memoir genre. I suppose some writers use that in order to self-aggrandize but I think the most interesting and useful pieces are examinations of the real stuff that we prefer to squint at in our own lives.

In the same vein I have grown really suspicious of Salon's literary critism and have found the same tendency to twist an authors work to the agenda of the critic/blogger.

I do love a lot of the orignal writing here but you have to wonder about the editorial agenda and wonder even more about the people who post here soley on the basis of the blog post or review without reading the primary sources.

25 large to carry someone else's child huh? To me, that seems the seller sold herself too low to this particular buyer.

Why you may ask?

Well, lets see it seems that Mrs. K spent somewhere between 50 and 100 grand to birth the child herself through IVF treatments, unfortunately that didn't work.

In her home I'm sure there can be found very, very expensive one of a kind pieces of artwork.

This woman was hired to create a one of a kind human being inside of herself because the mother and father couldn't do it themselves. Personally I think in this bit of outsourcing, the seller was lowballed. If I was going to create a one of a kind person in my body for 9 months, I would certainly deem that act to be on par with any fine piece of artwork they have in their home and charge an equivalent price.

Amy Benfer’s article is quite simply the most irresponsible piece of journalism I have ever read. Whether it is an example of deliberate maliciousness (and we can only speculate on the reasons—professional jealousy? Ultra-right wing political beliefs? A personal grudge?) or mere stupidity is a moot point. The crucial fact is that Benfer took the author’s words out of context and used insinuation to support her claims against Kuczynski, who she introduces as “the author of a book on plastic surgery (for which she did plenty of firsthand research)”.

Is this book Beauty Junkies (Doubleday 2006), that received these reviews from experts at Harvard and UPenn?:

“In this brilliant book, Alex Kuczynski takes a sharp and clear-eyed look at beauty lust run amok where the pursuit of beauty morphs into craving and addiction.”

—Nancy Etcoff, Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital

and

“If you are thinking about getting something lifted...suctioned or abraded this is the book to read before walking into a plastic surgeon's office.” —Arthur Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania

Yes, in fact, it is that book. With that in mind, let’s continue through Benfer’s article. She next insinuates that Kuczynski used an impoverished woman for her body, because why would anyone “take on such a burden if she weren’t seriously in need of cash.” As a responsible journalist, Kuczynski examines this compelling question. She discovers that “the personal stories of the potential surrogates were deeply moving. One woman had given up her newborn for adoption rather than have an abortion; the experience led her to explore surrogacy…None were living in poverty. Lawyers and surrogacy advocates will tell you that they don’t accept poor women as surrogates for a number of reasons.”

Benfer accuses Kuczynski of condescending to Hilling, writing, “Kuczynski, hilariously, is impressed that she knows how to use a computer.” She speculates, “But offhand, I’d say that, if given a “choice,” she’d (Hiller) probably prefer to earn that extra few grand through something that didn’t involve nine months of pregnancy, labor and delivering a baby for a woman who will later write an article referencing her hemorrhoids and flatulence.” Perhaps Benfer should have played Real Journalist and actually asked Mrs. Hilling about her preferences. Kuczynski does. And this is what she finds:

“Cathy and Mick (Cathy’s husband) sounded compassionate and intelligent. And she was experienced at surrogacy: She had delivered a a baby boy the previous year for a couple in New Jersey…In her case, age (43) lent maturity and experience….Cathy told me that her motivations were not purely financial, although she was frank about the fact that the money would help with her two children in college….But the experience of having a baby for the New Jersey couple, Cathy said, provided her with a deep thrill, and the feeling that she was needed in a profound, unique way.”

It is difficult to imagine how Ms. Benfer draws her conclusion that Kuczynski lacks “kindness and respect” from a woman who writes, “I appreciated Cathy’s warmth and straightforward manner. But there was something else that drew me to her….Her husband graduated from William and Mary. Her daughter…wanted to be a journalist…They seemed, in other words, not so different from us.”

Benfer also ignores the reasons that Kuczynski pursued surrogacy in the first place, and the conspicuous absence implies that the motivators were convenience and vanity. Kuczynski tells us her reasons: “Exhausted by years of infertility, wrung emotionally dry by miscarriage." Surely Kuczynski speaks for the 7.3 million couples in the United States who have struggled with infertility when she writes of 11 failed in vitro fertility treatments and 4 miscarriages, and of “the abyss of grief that threatened to suck me under every day.”

Benfer accuses Kuczynski of “barely disguised nastiness and envy with which” she treats Hilling, citing the fact that she “blackens out Hilling’s name” on the sonogram. Benfer quotes Kuczynski admitting that “it was immature, puerile, like a seventh-grade girl blacking out her nemesis’ pictures in the yearbook. I wanted her identity to disappear and mine to take its place.” What Benfer either chooses to ignore or is not intelligent enough to understand is the context in which Kuczynski confides these unflattering feelings. In the course of her article, Kuczynski acknowledges and explores the entire complex spectrum of emotions associated with the surrogacy: feelings of failure, relief, jealousy, anger at the universe; insecurity, self-pity, and deep gratitude.

Benfer cheapens those emotions by claiming, near the end, that Kuczynski is “still glum.” Benfer misquotes Kuczynski, attributing these words to her husband, Charles Stevenson: “He did come out of your body…With a little help.” The final four words are not Stevenson’s, but Kuczynski’s: “He (our son) is our most vivid dream realized—the embodiment of the most blindly powerful force in the universe, brought to life the only way he could be. With a little help.” The final four words of the article are Kuczynski’s, and they are obviously a deliberate understatement.

Benfer closes her critique with a dig that implies racial and social condescension gleaned from a photograph showing Kuczynski and her son with their African American baby nurse. “It seems that in the Kuczynski household, it’s perfectly clear what position the ‘help’ is meant to occupy,” writes Benfer. I can speak firsthand about what position the ‘help’ occupies in the Kuczynski household. I am currently a college English professor who once supported myself by bartending in Idaho. As such, I have been the “help” in the Kuczynski household. I do not socialize with Alex Kuczynski. But in that household, I have never been treated with anything but kindness, respect, and gratitude. Charles Stevenson and Alex Kuczynski’s bringing a child into this world will make the world a better place.