Netizens horrified by proposal offering flat in exchange for carrying baby for state - Singapore News

SINGAPORE: A dystopian thought experiment about surrogacy and state-run child-rearing has sparked a heated debate online, with many Singaporeans reacting with horror and comparing the scenario to science fiction stories and some of history’s darkest social experiments.

The discussion began after netizen dinky.jojo posed a hypothetical question to local women: Would they accept a two-room flat at age 25 in exchange for carrying a child conceived through artificial insemination, with the understanding that they would not raise the child after birth?

Under the scenario, the woman would receive free neonatal check-ups but no allowance, would have to endure nine months of pregnancy, and the baby would then be handed over to a government-run system to be raised.

The idea quickly struck a nerve.

One commenter did not mince words, calling the proposal “disturbingly horrific.”

“So we are all just numbers on a spreadsheet, a KPI target to keep meaningless lines on graphs rising?” the commenter asked, “Really, are we just meant to be cogs in a machine that functions with the logic of a tumour?”

The commenter went on to speculate that such an idea would not be entirely out of character for some policymakers.

“The sad part is, I wouldn’t put it above a PAP scholar-bureaucrat with his mechanistic thinking and hyper-inflated sense of superiority to unironically propose this in a private memo,” they wrote, before adding: “we had the Graduate Mothers’ Scheme, after all, who knows what other abominations that we don’t know about yet?”

Others focused less on the political angle and more on the ethical implications.

“Ethical violation on so many levels,” one commenter wrote. They argued that the scenario reduced children to objects rather than human beings, saying the child was being viewed not as an individual but as something to be produced and managed.

Another commenter felt the proposal ignored the importance of family structures altogether. “The last thing we need is more children growing up with absent fathers. Plenty of them already,” they wrote.

Some comments took on a more cynical tone, with one person suggesting that participation rates would probably increase if money was added to the deal. “Put in an allowance and I know there will be people that will take it up honestly,” they wrote.

Others questioned whether the economics of the proposal even made sense.

“If the government really wanted to do a dystopian idea like this, they wouldn’t need to pay an exorbitant 2-room flat worth 350k to a local woman to do it,” one commenter argued, “Market rate for surrogacy in developing countries is in the 50k range.”

Another echoed the sentiment, writing: “If the government wanted to go that route. They could do it cheaper, faster and maybe better. Don’t even need to pay people a BTO. lol.”

Several netizens immediately thought of dystopian television and literature. “What in the black mirror,” one person wrote.

Another said the proposal “actually feels like a black mirror episode,” before joking that it might be more acceptable “if it’s a lab-grown baby and no one needs to be inseminated.”

One commenter drew an unexpected parallel with National Service. “So like NS?” they wrote, “At 18, the government offers free bed and food, little allowance in exchange for marching and charging up hills. For 2 years, our bodies goes through hell, and we are forced to eat army rations. Except we don’t get a choice and no one thinks this is dystopian.”

Some pointed to Canada’s residential schools and Romanian orphanages as examples of institutional systems that ended disastrously. Looking further back in history, one netizen cited the Ottoman Empire’s Devshirme system, in which boys were taken from their families and raised to serve the state. The commenter argued that while the Ottoman system produced capable soldiers and administrators, it did so by placing children in functioning households and communities rather than orphanages or barracks.

Others online are even more blunt, arguing that children need committed parents, not financial incentives.

“We need parents who will raise and care for their children,” they wrote, “Not money-hungry women looking for a quick payday and who see their own children as foreign objects.”

While the original post was framed as a hypothetical question, many commenters treated it as a window into broader anxieties about social engineering, the role of the state in family life, and Singapore’s plunging birth rate.

Singapore’s birth rate has fallen to its lowest level on record, with the resident Total Fertility Rate (TFR) dropping to just 0.87 in 2025, down from 0.97 in 2024. The figure sits far below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed for a population to replace itself without immigration.

The decline has been accompanied by a sharp drop in the number of births, with just 27,529 resident babies born in 2025, the lowest annual figure since records began.

At the same time, Singapore’s population is ageing rapidly, with one in five citizens now aged 65 or older. Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong has described the trend as an “existential challenge” for the country.

In response, the Government announced a new Marriage and Parenthood (M&P) Reset Workgroup in April 2026. Chaired by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah, the inter-agency group has been tasked with reviewing policies and developing what officials describe as a “whole-of-society” approach to supporting marriage and parenthood.

The workgroup will examine issues that Singaporeans frequently cite as barriers to having children, including the financial cost of raising a family, work-life balance, housing, healthcare, childcare, preschool education and workplace support. It is expected to engage employers, community organisations and members of the public before producing a full report in early 2027.

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