Activist Olivia Maurel, who was born through surrogacy, recently called the practice a “new form of human trafficking.” It is also on the rise. Even in the United Kingdom, where “commercial brokering” arrangements are illegal and those seeking to rent women can only reimburse “reasonable expenses,” surrogacy applications have skyrocketed.
“Applications to become the legal parents of children born to surrogates reached 758 in the year to March, up from 399 in 2016,” the Telegraph reported November 11. “According to official data, 5,763 applications for a parental order were made to the Ministry of Justice in the past decade, with 4,962 granted.” These orders “transfer legal parenthood from the surrogate (birth parent) to the intended parent or parents following court scrutiny.”
The practice of surrogacy has become more prominent in recent years as wealthy celebrities such as soccer star Cristiana Ronaldo, singer Elton John, actor Neil Patrick Harris, and reality show star Kim Kardashian have all utilized it to procure children. LGBT activists campaign aggressively for surrogacy as a way for same-sex couples to obtain children they cannot conceive naturally.
As one LGBT activist told the Guardian: “Surrogacy is a gay issue … The surest way to ensure that gay men don’t have children is to be against surrogacy.”
According to the Telegraph, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham “is facing pressure to reform surrogacy laws to recognise the intended parents as legal parents from birth, instead of waiting for a parental order” as well as “introduce legally binding agreements and require mandatory background checks before a pregnancy began.”
This would make surrogacy easier — but activists who recognize surrogacy as commodifying children are calling for a ban.
LGBT activists and women’s rights campaigners are once again at odds, with groups like Stop Surrogacy Now stating that the interests of children be prioritized over those of adults who seek to procure them, and noting that poor women are being exploited as their bodies are essentially rented by the wealthy. Many customers seek women in countries like Georgia, Ukraine, Mexico, and Nigeria.
“We are appalled to see parental orders for surrogate-born babies soaring in number,” Helen Gibson of Surrogacy Concern told the Telegraph. “The vast majority of surrogate born babies in the UK are now born abroad to low-income women in commercial arrangements which would not be legal if embarked upon in the UK. Allowing foreign-born surrogate babies to be brought here is a human rights abuse: this is a loophole in the law which must close.”
“Surrogate mothers are subject to legally enforceable contracts and often lose their rights to their babies in utero,” Gibson added. “These high figures include single men who have been able to obtain parental orders for surrogate born children since 2019. Taking a baby off their mother at birth contradicts all best practice on the care of newborn infants. Surrogacy is exploitative, cruel and unethical. It must be banned, now.”
“There is no right to have a child or to have offspring: it does not exist in any legal text, in any country in the world,” Maurel told an interviewer last year. “What does exist are the rights of children that are specifically recognized in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and surrogacy violates many of these rights.”