Catholic schoolteacher says she was suspended for surrogate pregnancy

In 2018, Jadira Bonilla, a preschool teacher in southern New Jersey, read a BuzzFeed article about infertility that moved her so deeply that she decided to volunteer to carry a child for someone else.

That same week, she emailed a surrogacy agency to offer her services.

Four years later, Bonilla gave birth to a healthy baby boy from the embryo of a couple she had signed a contract with. When the couple asked her last year to carry another baby, “I didn’t hesitate,” she said.

But 23 weeks into the pregnancy, on Sept. 12, Bonilla learned that she would be suspended from her current job as a kindergarten teacher at St. Mary, a Catholic school in Vineland, New Jersey. The reason, she says, was her surrogacy.

Steven P. Hogan, the school’s principal, confirmed in an email statement Thursday that Bonilla had been placed on paid administrative leave.

He described Bonilla as a “valued teacher” who “we hope will one day again teach in our school with the full understanding and acknowledgment of our faith which guides our educational principles.”

In an email to Bonilla shared with The New York Times, Hogan told her that she had been put on leave because of a “possible violation” of her contract, and that she would remain on leave while an investigation was completed.

Bonilla said that her employee contract did not explicitly prohibit gestational surrogacy. However, an employee handbook for the local Diocese of Camden says that conduct “contrary to the doctrines and teachings of the Catholic Church” can result in discipline or termination.

Bonilla said she had initially disclosed her plan to be a surrogate to Hogan during a conversation about health insurance. “The very first words that came out of his mouth were, ‘You’re renting your uterus?’ Bonilla recalled, adding: “And then he told me, ‘Well, you know, if you were to do that, you can’t work here.’

“They’re basically investigating whether I can or cannot do with my body what I want,” said Bonilla, who is a practicing Catholic.

Hogan did not respond to questions about his comments to Bonilla.

In 2024, Pope Francis labeled surrogacy “despicable” and called for a universal ban on the practice because of its “commercialization” of pregnancy. Catholic teaching also prohibits in vitro fertilization, an increasingly common treatment that is frequently used in surrogacy.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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