Prominent Catholic publication the National Catholic Register featured junior WHIP student Meghan Schultz’s latest article on the front page of its Feb.13 newspaper.
“I was very excited to see Meghan’s work in the National Catholic Register,” said Heather Schultz ’98, Schultz’s mother and former editor-in-chief of the Collegian. “I was very proud of the fact that she was speaking out on topics that are potentially difficult to address in today’s culture.”
Schultz, a journalism minor, is an intern at the Register, where she reports on culture, politics, and religion. Although Schultz’s articles are almost exclusively published online, the Register featured her piece, “Womb for rent: Celebrity choice highlights how surrogacy financially exploits women” in its latest print edition.
“My article was about how surrogacy financially excludes women—specifically, the surrogates themselves,” Schultz said. “It came about as a result of the news of Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas announcing the birth of their first baby through surrogacy, because it was inconvenient for their scheduling for them to conceive a child.”
The Register specializes in taking Catholic angles on secular news. Even though the Catholic Church rejects surrogacy in all forms, Catholics often address commercial surrogacy in varying ways, Schultz said.
“It was an opportunity to raise awareness but also to report on something that happened, and why it’s relevant,” Schultz said. “I talked to people who work in fields related to sexual exploitation or exploitation of women specifically, and the piece ended up revealing an intersection between feminist thought and Catholic teaching. Many feminists are also heavily against commercial surrogacy.”
Gloria Steinem, a well-known feminist, fought against legalizing commercial surrogacy in New York in 2019, Schultz said. Feminists believe that commercial surrogacy financially exploits women.
“You never see a celebrity carrying a civilian’s baby — you never see the rich woman carrying the poor woman’s baby,” Schultz said. “So there’s obviously a very heavy financial angle to the entire industry. And because it’s so unregulated, it creates opportunities for manipulation and harms the women who are actually bearing the children because they have the most to lose in that situation.”
Former National Catholic Register intern Virginia Aabram ’21 said she enjoyed reading Schultz’s work.
“I think it’s really great she’s continuing the Hillsdale legacy at the National Catholic Register,” Aabram said. “She’s killing it — she’s hitting the Catholic cultural perspective, which is a great thing for the Register.
Schultz said she was thankful for the opportunity to write about the intersection of faith and pop culture.
“I’ve had numerous people say to me that they have read her articles and have learned a lot about church teaching — and not only learned something, but come to have an appreciation and understanding that they did not have prior to that,” Heather Schultz said. “I think that’s one of the best functions writing can serve in this context, and so I’m very proud of her and very thankful for the work she, and all the Hillsdale students, are doing.”
