Until the 1980s, commercial surrogacy in the United States was relatively unregulated. But since the case of Mary Beth Whitehead, where a surrogate mother refused to give up the baby to the parents who contracted her after giving birth, the procedure has been met by an abounding litany of restrictions and outright bans. Why? Because the New Jersey Supreme Court that ruled on Whitehead’s case held that the “long-term effects of surrogacy,” which include “the impact on the natural mother as the full weight of her isolation is felt” makes surrogacy contracts “illegal and unenforceable.” Essentially, because the birth mother might feel sadness and guilt later. 

In 2007, Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court upheld a federal late-term abortion ban on the grounds that “some women come to regret their choice” - despite a volume of research that shows there is no medically significant link between abortion and mental health issues in women.  

Advocates for abortion waiting periods and ultrasound laws claim that such measures help women consider alternatives to what is a “painful moral decision.” Often titled along the lines of “Women’s Right To Know,” these laws purport to obtain “true” informed consent from women seeking abortions by giving them “all the information they need” to make the “right” choice, when it’s apparent that the “right” choice is to, in their words, “choose life.” 

Studies show, however, that most women say they feel “relief” (and not regret) after an abortion. But if statistics on child abuse, neglect and postpartum depression are any indication, it seems that many women regret motherhood - but we don’t talk about them because regretting being a mother seems “unnatural” to us.

More recently, an online service called Seeking Arrangement, which facilitates “mutually beneficial relationships” between wealthy older men and young women, has come under fire for promoting prostitution-like relationships. After The Atlantic initially reported on how popular the site has become among college women, both Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling devoted airtime to the “sugar-baby" phenomenon, ostensibly to convey a mixture of moral outrage and sagely guidance. 

You know, for those misguided women who might “regret” their choice to sell their youth for tuition money.

Those commentators who argue that “sugaring” is tantamount to prostitution and should also be banned hold that the law, presumably written by members of society who “know better,” should protect these women who have made the unfortunate, socially frowned-upon choice to sell their youth and sexuality - not because it could be abusive, exploitative or harmful to families, but because it could come up in a background check when they look for a “real” job.

To these people, the law must protect women from their own bad decisions, which may cause them regret later on. The government must determine what risks a woman should be allowed to face, because either due to our myopia, stupidity, or irreverence, we can’t adequately assess them for ourselves. 

But at no other time, and for no other group has preventing regret risen to the level of a social interest that is compelling enough to legislate. 

Regret is one of the worst emotions a person can experience, simply due to the fact that the event causing the feeling is a fact from the past. There is nothing you can do at the present to change that fact and make the feeling go away; “wishing that [you] hadn’t done that” is just that, a futile hope that can never materialize into anything concrete. This is why a rational, intelligent person thinks about the impacts before saying or doing anything, so he/she doesn’t have to regret later. 

But regret is also part of being human. A student can regret not studying harder the previous night when he is sitting in his final exam and discovers that he probably won’t pass. Michael Phelps can regret the poor judgement that led to his second DUI and suspension from the national team. A woman might regret an abortion an hour, a week, or a decade after she has had the procedure. A woman with a newborn might regret becoming a parent, as she realizes that the caretaker role is not for her. A young woman in college who was a “sugar baby” to pay for college might, as Lisa Ling did, later regret the arrangement after feeling like she had “compromised” herself.

But all of those experiences, though unhappy and unfortunate, are part of adult life. None of us can guarantee that our future outlook on something will be the same as what we predicted before we chose to say/do that thing - that in fact, is the very principle of informed consent, which all persons, male and female, over age 18 are legally permitted to give. As long as we understand what we’re doing and what the known risks of that are, even if that choice is potentially harmful, no one has the authority to stop us. Adults own our choices. 

Yes, women regret, as do men, the elderly, college students or any other demographic. Arguing that preventing regret outweighs the autonomy of any of their choices is authoritarian. Their feelings about their actions are not communal property; we should stop regulating it like it is. 

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