The UN’s Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) has called for the worldwide eradication of surrogacy.
Reem Alsalem has authored a hard-hitting report on VAWG in the context of surrogacy, calling the practice “exploitative”, “commodifying and objectifying women’s bodies”, and something that needs to be eradicated “in all its forms”.
While surrogacy is legal in the UK, commercial surrogacy is not. However, the global surrogacy market is growing, being valued at $14.4bn in 2023 and expected to rise to $96.6bn by 2033.
Dark side
Alsalem told The Daily Telegraph: “I see a lot of similarities between the system of prostitution and the system of surrogacy”.
She highlighted the “dark side of surrogacy”, stating that it “is clearly responsible for inflicting large-scale violence, abuse and exploitation on women and children”.
The UN expert rejected the notion that people “have a right to rent out a womb and then remove a child from their mother”. She added: “it’s just insane how this has been allowed to happen”.
She warned: “Many British couples turn to international surrogacy arrangements, including countries such as Ukraine and the United States, where weaker regulations heighten the risk of service exploitation and child trafficking, so you’re only exporting the problem.” And she called for an international ban on “reproductive tourism”.
Exploitation
Italy’s Minister for Family, Natality, and Equal Opportunities, Eugenica Rocella, commented: “existing international treaties on the protection of women and children’s rights should be updated to explicitly include surrogacy as a practice of undermining dignity and entailing exploitation”.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International called the report a “landmark moment for the global movement to end surrogacy”. It added: “Surrogacy rests on a system of violence that dehumanizes women and children alike. States need to develop a coordinated international response to end the grave human rights violations inherent in this practice.”
ADF International’s Giorgio Mazzoli said: “We commend the Special Rapporteur for exposing the harms of this exploitative industry and urge governments around the world to unite in ending surrogacy in all its forms at all levels, including through the adoption of a UN treaty banning the practice globally.”
Pressure to abort
Californian mother of four Melissa Cook became a surrogate for a single, 51-year-old man due to financial reasons after a divorce.
During her pregnancy, Cook learned she was carrying triplets, and was shocked when the client commented: “I’m not sure I can have three kids. Can you think about aborting?”
Cook observed: “It became obvious to me that this man wasn’t capable of raising triplets. He demanded I have an abortion. I didn’t want one.”
Following persistent pressure to abort one of the babies, the surrogate told the man she would keep one of them and raise the child herself. But his lawyer instructed her that, legally, “these are his children”, and she had no parental rights. She recalled: “I just provided the body, basically, and had no rights whatsoever.”
No rights
The three baby boys were delivered by caesarean section at 30 weeks. Cook was not allowed support in the delivery room, as the client refused, and she never saw the boys she gave birth to. She reflected: “No one at the hospital would even tell me how they were doing.”
She turned down payment from the man, likening it to “blood money”. She subsequently attempted to gain maternal rights to the triplets, but was refused by the courts, despite evidence from a relative of the client who said that he was an “unfit parent” and would not have met the requirements to adopt.
Cook explained: “Commercial surrogacy shouldn’t be allowed. The mother has no rights. No one ever checked the home of the intended father before the triplets were born. He didn’t even have to go through a psychological background check like I did.” She added that commercial surrogacy is “not only disreputable – it’s evil.”
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