Although the number of British babies born via surrogacy is still small, it has risen from fewer than 100 a year two decades ago to more than 400 a year today
, a young British woman, carried and gave birth to a baby for an anonymous couple in 1985, many Britons were horrified. Ms Cotton had been artificially inseminated by the intended father and paid £6,500 . “Born to be sold,” ran one headline. “Sold for carpets and curtains”, another . Appalled lawmakers hurriedly passed the Surrogacy Arrangements Act, which prohibited commercial surrogacy and regulated the uncompensated kind.
Yet most people who want children want babies and there have long been too few of those available to satisfy demand. In 2014 a law was passed to allow same-sex couples to apply for the “parental orders” by which the intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement assume legal parenthood. For gay men like Alan White, chair of the board of trustees of Surrogacy, a non-profit group, this represented a sea change.
In particular the commission proposed that parental orders be ditched for Britain-born babies and that intended parents instead apply to have legal rights from their baby’s birth. The current system takes too long: parents tend to take surrogate-born babies home immediately but can wait up to a year to become legal parents. This can cause anxiety for everyone . Mr White and his husband have a five-month-old boy who is still legally the child of a surrogate and her husband .
Fears of exploitation lie behind Britain’s decision to keep surrogacy altruistic: the likelihood of coercion is greater when money is involved. Michael Johnson-Ellis, co-founder of My Surrogacy Journey, a non-profit organisation, says commercialisation would lead inevitably to the involvement of profit-making third parties like lawyers and agencies, pushing the price of surrogacy beyond the reach of many.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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