Global surrogacy practices

This report summarises discussions of participants in Thematic Area 5 (Global Surrogacy Practices) of the International Forum on Intercountry Adoption and Global Surrogacy held in August 2014. The Forum brought together advocates of women’s health, children’s rights and human rights; scholars from a range of disciplines; social workers; and legal and policy analysts with expertise in third-party reproduction and/or adoption. To the best of our knowledge, this was the first major convening of scholars, advocates and policy experts to jointly consider these topics and to highlight practices that should be either encouraged or avoided. Participants affirmed the importance of resolving the legal and citizenship status of children resulting from international surrogacy arrangements. In addition, they highlighted the need for greater policy and public attention to a wide range of effects on all the parties involved, particularly women working as surrogates and the children they gestate and bear. In addition to these status issues, concerns deemed particularly troubling included practices posing unnecessary medical risks to surrogate mothers and children; restrictions on personal autonomy of surrogates; the need to maintain records so that participants in surrogacy arrangements retain the option of future contact; the absence of basic screening of commissioning parents to reduce risks of abandonment or abuse of children born via surrogacy; and the absence of regulation or oversight of intermediaries in these commercial arrangements. Participants stressed the importance of these concerns being taken into account in any future Hague Conference convention on intercountry surrogacy.