About the book: Cash Cow: How the maternal body became a global commodity – and the hidden costs for women (2026) is a thought-provoking deep dive into the global fertility industry and the commodification of the maternal body.
Should surrogacy be a paid service, an altruistic act – or even legal at all?
Is it right that you can pay more for ‘VIP’ egg donors – and to view their photos?
How much, if anything, should breastmilk cost – and who should be allowed to buy it?
The global fertility industry is rapidly growing, hugely profitable and morally complex. This an industry where one person’s biological bad luck can be another person’s financial gain. From egg freezing to black-market breastmilk, the maternal body has never been more commodified, yet the ethical, emotional and economic implications are rarely considered.
Through a combination of undercover reporting and detailed first-hand accounts – including a surrogate of 12 children, an international embryo courier and a man who buys breastmilk for his IBS – Alev Scott exposes how the IVF, surrogacy and milk industries operate around the world and who is profiting.
In doing so, she considers the blurred line between exploitation and empowerment. Who should make money from the maternal body: only the women themselves, anyone or no one?
Timely, thought-provoking and compelling, Cash Cow: How the maternal body became a global commodity – and the hidden costs for women is an unmissable investigation into how desire, desperation and commerce intersect, and the impact the fertility industry has on individuals.
About the author: Alev Scott was born in London in 1987 to a Turkish mother and a British father. She studied Classics at Oxford before working in London as an assistant director in theatre and opera. In 2011, she moved to Istanbul, where she taught Latin at the Bosphorus University. Her first book, Turkish Awakening, was shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political Book Awards, Debut Political Book of the Year in 2015. Her second book, Ottoman Odyssey, was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award in 2019. Her third book was Power & the People, written with Andronike Makres.
Alev writes for numerous publications, including the Financial Times, Guardian, Newsweek, Harper’s Magazine, Politico Europe, New Statesman, Prospect, the BBC, Huffington Post, The Times, Sunday Times, New Humanist, the Los Angeles Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.
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