Surrogate, The: Jeremy Hersh's Tale of One Complicated Postmodern Family

Directed and written by Jeremy Hersh, The Surrogate deals with a new, rather relevant issue: the changing meaning and structure of the American family, specifically the need/wish of gay couple to raise children of their own.

Jasmine Batchelor plays Jess, an educated woman who works for a non-profit organization that provides support for incarcerated women.

She has agreed to be a surrogate for her two best friends, a gay couple, Josh (Chris Perfetti) and Aaron (Sullivan Jones).

Aaron is a lawyer and the trio believe they have a contractual agreement. The men will pay for all the medical expenses and Jess will relinquish any parental rights.

Then prenatal testing reveals an extra chromosome, Down syndrome. Jess now has a sense of purpose she did not have in her romantic or professional life. She reads up on Down syndrome and looks into community resources. She visits a social enrichment program, asks questions, reaches out to one of the teachers,

Josh and Aaron are understandably shell-shocked, but they go along to visit the enrichment program and visit Leon and his parents. Jess believes that if she just gives them the right reading material and maybe suggests a more lucrative career redirection, they can make it work and everyone will live happily ever after.

A medical professional delivers the news about the chromosomal test and then speaks delicately of referring them to someone who can “guide you through your options.”

Should they terminate the pregnancy? they put it in terms of the financial cost of raising a child with Down syndrome, glossing over the meaning of their decision for their ability to love and commit to a child they helped to conceive.

Meanwhile, Jess and her mother, an Ivy League dean, hold that if she was to keep the child herself, in addition to the other challenges of raising a special needs child alone, Jess would be perpetuating the stereotype of a single Black mother.