For years there has been a mixed reaction to why young women help infertile persons by acting as their gestational carrier.  I have personally heard from carriers, intended parents, physicians, agency owners and cynics and with a myriad of reasons including:

She is an "angel"; to being a "mercenary"; and that she "understands our pain".  As cynical or grateful your reaction may be, it remains that there are many more infertile persons looking for gestatational carriers than carriers themselves.

On July, 7 this year the 24th annual European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology opened.  One researcher from Middlesex University in London presented a paper demonstrating that the factors that induce women to become surrogates differed between groups, as did reasons for wanting to become parents themselves.

Women who were willing to become surrogates were more likely to help others to become parents like themselves.  The author concluded that potential surrogates value families and parenthood over extraneous ideas like compensation.  

Now that is totally cool!