Should paid surrogacy be legal?

Hannah ThompsonYouGovLabs and UK Public Opinion Website Editor
February 01, 2011, 2:36 AM GMT+0

The issue of paid surrogacy, and whether it should be legal in the UK, has come under the spotlight recently among many of our British panellists, in the wake of several celebrities admitting to having used surrogates to have children. Nicole Kidman and Sarah Jessica Parker are just some of the well-known figures having used surrogates in the past few years, while Elton John and David Furnish’s baby was born late last year in the same way.

Those who responded on the matter seem split three ways: some are sure that paid surrogacy shouldn’t be allowed; some consider the practice permissible as long as the child’s welfare is secure; and others are exasperated at what they perceive to be the unfair treatment celebrities and the rich receive by being able to circumvent usual laws for their own purposes.

Many of the panellists who responded think paid surrogacy can’t really be justified, either because there are already large numbers of children waiting to be adopted or because it is tantamount to ‘buying children’.



Some of our panellists seemed inclined to support the legalisation of paid surrogacy, providing the right measures were in place to ensure the child would be brought up in a stable, loving environment.



Others were drawn to comment on what they perceive to be ‘liberties’ the rich and famous can take with such methods of conception.



At the moment, surrogate mothers can only be paid ‘reasonable expenses’ in the UK to cover costs such as loss of income and maternity clothing. However, in other countries, such as the United States, exchanging money for surrogacy is legal. This practice has been widely frowned upon because wealthy people, like Elton John and his partner, David Furnish, who recently paid a woman to carry their son, who had previously failed to adopt due to Elton’s age, seem to be able to pay their way round such restrictions using surrogacy.

However, others have also made a case for the priority of personal choice, providing the child’s wellbeing is considered. Natalie Gamble, a leading fertility lawyer, won a landmark legal case last year in which two British parents were allowed to keep a child who had been born via commercial surrogacy. This suggests that, although paid surrogacy is not yet legal in the UK, there may be a growing attitude of legal lenience towards the practice. The debate continues.